


The Things You Don't Know

by Whimsical_in_the_Brainpan



Series: All I Have Known [3]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bullying, Communication Failure, F/M, Homophobia, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whimsical_in_the_Brainpan/pseuds/Whimsical_in_the_Brainpan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire has a group now. A group of friends who accept him and like having him around. But it’s all a ruse anyway. They seem to think that he’s someone funny, or intelligent, or that he has something to contribute to their little club. The moment the curtain’s pulled away, they’ll know. And there'll be nowhere for him to hide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Don’t Know How You Scare Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! The first chapter of The Things You Don't Know! I know a lot of you have been waiting for this, and I'm really excited for it. I hope it's everything you expected.

Grantaire had missed this. Curled up with Éponine on the couch, watching one of their terrible movies and chatting lightly about nothing whatsoever, he was comfortable. They really hadn’t had a bad movie night in forever, so Éponine had asked him about it a few days ago. They had been just so busy lately, what with finals, and work, and then classes starting up again.

Not to mention the Amis meetings that they had both started going to. Most clubs met once, maybe twice a week. But Enjolras seemed to demand the commitment to _the cause_ that most college sports would demand. Meetings took place three to four times a week, and unofficial get-togethers and bar nights seemed to always take up the remaining days. Grantaire honestly couldn’t tell if it was one of the joys of college, or just unhealthy codependence.

But whatever it was, it seemed the both of them had been swept up in it. Éponine less so, she had the Writing Center and occasional huge projects in her journalism to keep her from meetings and parties. No one seemed to begrudge her that, and almost everyone had days when classes just got in the way.

But not Grantaire. He wasn’t a student, and his work ended after the dinner rush. He had found himself appearing at the Corinth for every meeting, memorizing their coffee preferences at the Musain after someone had just pulled an all-nighter, and even getting roped into parties in various dorms.

He still doesn’t quite understand how it happened. He had found a steady drinking partner in Bahorel. He spent more lunch breaks than not hanging out with Joly and Bossuet. He saw Combeferre almost every morning, and chatted with him between customers before the philosophy major had to rush off to class. Feuilly had even offered to set up that heating system in his apartment for a discount price.

And Enjolras…

Ever since the political science major had gotten a hold of his number after that stupid rally, it seems like they haven’t stopped texting. Most of it was some argument or another, from issues of gun control to messages in Disney movies, but none of it was as harsh and scathing as the first two arguments had been. Instead, they had simmered down to fiery debates. Even through texts, Grantaire could picture the blond’s eyes flashing as he read his responses, fingers flying over his the keyboard to type a response.

And if he was accosted by the student leader the moment he walked into meetings with words like “ _So you’re telling me that…”_ then he didn’t mind at all. If it didn’t make Grantaire flush with warmth, then he would almost find it funny the way Enjolras pounced, eager to continue the debate. His eyes always burned passionately but his lips were fitted into a slight smile, eager for the challenge. Grantaire always responded with his cool posture and wide smirk, ready with a sharp rebuttal. And if the rest of the Amis occasionally got lost in their back-and-forths, neither boy noticed, or paid much care.

To his surprise, Grantaire had grown used to having a group of people. He saw the contradiction; all his life apathy had been his goal. He’d rejected belief, and yet he couldn’t help but let these friends into his heart. And after all, friendship was a type of conviction. Their acceptance became an insidious presence in his shields, and yet he found himself too intoxicated on happiness to care.

But for the moment, the texting had slowed to a bare minimum and the Amis were nowhere to be seen. It had been far too long since Éponine and he had just enjoyed a bad movie night together. Enjolras had a paper to write as well, so his phone only beeped with a text a small handful of times in the two hours.

Buried in the red couch, with The Room playing on his computer in the background, he and Éponine just chatted comfortably, occasionally pausing to yell out their favorite bits of dialogue.

 _“Aihm taierd, aihm wasted, ah love you dahrling!”_ They both yelled out the quote as the movie said it, getting that bizarre accent perfect.

“God, someone needs to pick apart and study Tommy Wiseau’s brain,” Grantaire laughs, and reaches for the bowl of popcorn on the floor in front of him. “Think we can get Joly to do it? For science?”

“Well, Cosette’s field is closer. Maybe we should ask her.”

Éponine had been making comments like this for the past month or so now, since before finals, and Grantaire still wasn’t sure exactly what she meant. He had asked her several times if she wanted him to hate her on principle, but she still refused, insisting that she liked the blonde freshman.

“I dunno Ep, forcing her to undergo that? The things she’d see; she might never want to touch a man again.”

“All the more reason.”

Grantaire looked up at her; she was currently playing the big spoon in their odd sprawl on the couch and playing absentmindedly with his hair. Éponine looked down at him with an evil grin, raising an eyebrow playfully. That was the Éponine he knew. Awkwardly, she leaned over him to try to reach the popcorn. By the time her elbow started digging into his ribs, he shoved her back playfully.

“Just ask, woman!” he snapped jokingly and grabbed a large handful of popcorn. He reached behind his head to where he assumed her face was, and shoved food at her several times, enjoying her spluttering and trying to swat him away.

“We really shouldn’t be eating the popcorn anyway,” Éponine said as she wrangled the food from his grip and ignored the kernels disappearing into the cracks of the couch. “Not with that giant ass cake in our fridge.”

“Oh God, don’t remind me,” he laughed.

He still couldn’t pinpoint why he had done it a few weeks ago.  Of course, he’d been drunk, but that wasn’t really an excuse for him anymore. By this point he could practically think just as well drunk as he did sober. He had been wrapped up in a conversation with Jehan, Marius, Feuilly, and Enjolras, listening them talk about student tuition fees, when all of a sudden he’d felt himself sitting up and saying “Guys, can I tell you something?”

The four of them must have seen that he was serious, because they immediately dropped the topic and looked at him expectantly. Enjolras’ face had been so neutral and curious, and altogether too open to be safe. He’d been internally panicking, wondering what the hell he was doing, and how could he pass this off as a joke.

But then, he’d stared back at them in shock as he said, “I’m gay.”

Before that moment, he’d only come out twice in his life, and both of them had been very different circumstances. For starters, it had never been in a public place, at a long table where everyone could hear. As the words slipped out, he’d started to panic, trying to figure out ways to escape. Then he felt hands on his shoulders, and for a moment he was sure they were about to drag him to the ground and kick him until he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. But then he felt they were claps on the back, and he was surrounded by smiles and thanks for trusting them. Jehan had managed to get around the table to where he was sitting and launch at him in a hug, congratulating him.

Throughout it all, Enjolras just stared at him with an honest to God smile on his face, and offered a little nod.

It was a surreal experience, and Grantaire had spent the entire goddamn night floating. He had wondered if Joly was right about the air being thinner somehow, because he had felt light-headed and wonderfully at ease the entire night.

Two days later at the next official meeting, he had been assaulted by confetti the moment he stepped into the Corinth, then dragged by Courfeyrac to their usual booth where a 2ft x 1ft x 3in rectangle cake sat in the middle of the table. It was covered in vanilla frosting and rainbow sprinkles, and in bright green frosting the words “YOU’RE GAY!” were written across it.

“I baked it myself!” Courfeyrac had announced proudly. “With some help from Jehan, of course. Because Marius wouldn’t help.”

Grantaire had just laughed, drunk on an emotion he couldn’t name, and cut into the cake. The moment the inside was revealed to him though, he turned back to the bouncy sophomore and smirked at him incredulously.

“Funfetti? You made it out of funfetti?” he asked.

“Well duh, funfetti is the gayest cake! And the tastiest!”

They still had more than 2/3 of that cake still sitting in its gigantic tupperware in their fridge, waiting to be eaten. Not because they hadn’t been eating it, but because there was so goddamn much of it.

“You know what,” Grantaire said, standing up from the couch and heading towards the fridge. “Too late, now I want cake.”

“Are you sure?” Éponine called out over the back of the couch. “The popcorn’s bad enough. Think of all the questions we’ll have to answer if you get frosting on this couch.”

“Yes, but think of all the responses we can come up with,” Grantaire said with a smirk as he pulled out a plate and a fork.

“There’s really only one logical one conclusion,” she deadpanned back at him. “And seriously, we can never get rid of this couch. Shouldn’t we protect it?”

Over his shoulder, he could hear the text tone on his phone go off, and waved for Éponine to throw it to him. Without a thought, she tossed it to him, and he caught it before going back to his cake.

“We do take care of our couch!” he protested lightly. “And there’s always plenty of excuses, though we should probably branch away from the old we killed an Albino now that we’re surrounded by social activists,”

He turned to the phone and saw a little sun symbol in the place of a name, indicating that Enjolras had sent it. He unlocked the phone with a swipe and pressed the button to get the phone to read the message to him while he cut himself a slice of cake.

As the phone spoke the message to him, Grantaire froze, veins turning to ice.

\-----

“Hey Ep, how do you feel about getting totally wasted tonight?” Grantaire called to her from the kitchen area, and she looked up from the computer to stare at him confused.

“Courf’s not surprising everyone with another insane house party, is he? Just tell him we’ve already got plans.”

“No, it’s not Courf. I just really feel like getting completely drunk right now.”

“No way,” she whined, upset by what she was hearing. “It’s crappy movie night. There’s no alcohol for crappy movie night unless we have more people and a pre-established drinking game. You know that.”

“Please Ep.”

Hearing the soft mumbled plea coming from her best friend’s mouth felt like a bucket of ice water. Suddenly, the past few months of adjusting to a friend group and a comfortable new routine had disappeared. For whatever reason, Grantaire was scared again, and her protective best friend mode kicked in again.

“What happened?” She stood up to face him, expression instantly concerned and angry.

“Ep…”

“Who texted, R? Do I need to kill someone?”

When he looked reluctant to answer, she jumped over the back of the couch and snatched the phone from his hands before he could protest.  She had long since familiarized herself with his methods of avoiding words, and his little puns, so she immediately guessed that the sun symbol for a contact name meant Enjolras. She should have guessed as much. But as her eyes skimmed over the text the righteous anger died away, leaving her with a jittery roommate, and a confused pit in her stomach.

**Then why don’t you sit in on my Partisan Discourse class sometime? I imagine it’d be funny to watch you tear into the other students the way you tear through my beliefs.**

“Is this it? You should do it. Maybe this is the equivalent of a date to him,” she said, voice carefully light.

“Yeah, maybe,” he replied, using that distracted tone of voice that he always used when blatantly lying to get out of something. He turned around towards the fridge, as if looking for something. Immediately, Éponine remembered the handle of vodka they still had in the fridge, and beat him there, putting her body in between Grantaire and the alcohol. Her anger was back, this time directed entirely at him. There were no secrets between them, and it was downright insulting to her to try the same shit he pulled with everyone else.

“Well, why not go?” she demanded harshly. “Don’t think you can lie to me, of all people!”

“Éponine,” he started to beg, but she wouldn’t hear it.

“No! No booze, no hiding, no passing it off as nothing. Just stop overthinking everything and tell me what this is!”

“I can’t enter that classroom!”

The ragged sob came out of left field, catching her off guard. She hadn’t been expecting that, and didn’t entirely know what to make of it. When she found herself stuck in unfamiliar territory with Grantaire, it was typically best to walk softly and appear as nonthreatening as possible. Slowly, she approached him and untangled the fork from his hands before leading him back towards the couch. The cake sat on the counter abandoned.

“Why not?”

“Somehow I’ve managed to trick everyone into forgetting that I don’t actually go to college with them…”

“Feuilly’s not a student.” She cut him off, already worn down and tired of this conversation. No matter how many times she tried to talk to him about school, he refused to believe that he was anything less than the class retard, and wouldn’t even hear her theory on why he had so much trouble. This was an old dance that she’d stopped dancing years ago.

“That was a fluke of paperwork. He’s supposed to be a student; fuck, he will be a student,” Grantaire shoots back instantly. “Somehow I’ve been mixed in with the rest of you, and there’s this illusion that I somehow belong.”

Her frustration boiled over, and she snapped.  “If you’d stop isolating yourself for a second then maybe you’d realize that you fucking belong. They like you; they want you around.”

Grantaire sprang up from the couch and threw his arms open in frustration. With just a small twitch of his hands, he gestured to himself, as if he was angry with her for not accepting his defeated statements as truth.

“They don’t know me! I’m the alcoholic dropout who never would’ve graduated anyway. And the moment I step in that classroom, he’ll see that too,” Grantaire shouted back, voice cracking and giving way to something closer to sobs. “Whatever delusion he’s been under that I’m worthy of being part of his precious Amis will immediately be cleared up once he sees me in that class. And then I’m back where I started.”

“Where’s that?” she asked, disbelievingly.

“Piss poor, friendless, drunk. The dirt beneath their feet.”

 “Oh come on R!” she said, exasperated. She didn’t know how else to combat the self-pity besides this anymore. “You know them better than to think they’d blow you off like that.”

“Remember Combeferre’s shirt? Future waitstaff of America? He’s terrified of winding up in my best possible job opportunity. I am their lowest of the low.”

At that surprising moment of clear logic, she had to take pause.

“How much have you told Enjolras? About you, and us?” she asked suspiciously.

“Nothing, why?”

“This isn’t about your job,” she concluded, sizing him up. “This is about someone believing in you and you just being unable to handle that.”

“Ep…” Grantaire started miserably, but she wouldn’t let him finish. The pieces were coming together so clearly, and this was no longer an accusation directed towards him, but an epiphany that she just had to say out loud, otherwise she might forget.

“Enjolras is the first goddamn friend you’ve had in years, and you’re fucking terrified of disappointing him.”

Grantaire was staring down at her now, begging her with tear-filled eyes not to follow her thought to its natural conclusion. All she had to do was look at his utterly wrecked expression to see that she had hit the nail on the head, but she couldn’t stop herself from saying it anyway.

“Like what happened with Christopher.”

Time froze, and the moment that forbidden name passed through her lips, she’d realized what she’d done. All the years of healing and burying their past was ripped away and left Grantaire raw and helpless in front of her. Neither of them had uttered the name in three years. Not since before he’d appeared at her window that night.

_“We’re leaving. Pack your shit.”_

She’d only known subconsciously at the time that he meant to leave more than their town in the distance. He’d run from his parents, and their school, and Brandon Walters with all his little shits, but maybe more importantly than everything else, he was running away from Christopher.

Éponine opened her mouth to say something, fuck, say anything. But before she could even figure out what to say, Grantaire took the choice away from her. His expression grew unnervingly stony as he broke eye contact. And without saying a word, he turned and walked out of the apartment, closing the door behind him.


	2. You Don’t Know Your Own Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is so short. It's a bridge chapter, and a bit of an important one. But since it's so much shorter than usual, I decided to give it to you sooner than usual. Also, I've gotten an amazing response on chapter one! I'm so happy for the positive feedback I've received from this so far, and I'm so glad you've been enjoying it!

It’s been a little over a month since Grantaire fell out of contact with all of the Amis, stopped coming into meetings, and Combeferre has been watching Enjolras slowly go out of his mind. At first Combeferre had just passed his roommate’s strange behavior off as common irritability, but after three days when the dark haired man failed to show up at their meeting, he began to get worried. They were all worried; Grantaire never missed a meeting, even when he wound up drunk for half of them he was always there. Enjolras said nothing, but he hadn’t needed to. Their leader wore a dark expression that left no room for doubt. Something had happened, and no one knew what.

When Éponine showed up to the next meeting without him, Combeferre was even further puzzled. The Amis had felt safe in assuming that their leader and the cynic had fought and Grantaire had taken to hiding again, but if that were the case then Éponine would be hiding along with him. Whatever the relationship was between those two, it was unbreakable and extremely protective. Like with the second time Grantaire had approached them, if Éponine thought that someone had upset Grantaire, she would turn hostile instantly, and wall the two of them away safely. How healthy it was, Combeferre wasn’t qualified to judge, but he respected the hell out of her for it.

But all he got from her was that she was still as comfortable around the majority of them as she always was. She didn’t really interact with Enjolras much, choosing to joke around with Bossuet and Courfeyrac, chat with Cosette, drink with Bahorel, or even converse with him over their leader. If he felt some tension between the two, then that just confirmed his suspicion that something had happened all the more.

Grantaire’s crush on his roommate was far from unnoticed (hell, most of the Amis had a pool going on how long it would take that shipwreck to come to fruition) and Combeferre was genuinely embarrassed by how long it took for his mind to reach that possibility. Grantaire might have admitted to feelings towards Enjolras, and the blond might’ve made a mess of things.

Whatever it was, Combeferre had literally never seen his roommate like this before. Not just bitter and short-tempered, but genuinely unhappy and confused. Enjolras had gotten shockingly close to the cynic in the past several months, and even if he didn’t harbor romantic feelings for Grantaire, he still missed his company. The tension picked away at Combeferre, leaving him wanting to help fix the problem, or at least soothe the break Grantaire’s absence had caused in his friends, including the cynic himself.

There was no way to ask Éponine about it without immediately alienating her; Combeferre instantly ruled that out. She would take Grantaire’s secrets to the grave, even if she thought he was trying to help. Grantaire was nowhere to be found, and he genuinely doubted that he’d be able to locate the cynic if he had taken to hiding from them.

That was how he found himself sitting in the chair next to Enjolras’ regular desk in the library, reading Kant for class and trying to work up the nerve to ask his roommate some of the questions he’d been eluding from the other Amis for so long.

“Hey Enj,” he finally speaks up, determined to just let the conversation go where it needed to go. “May I ask you a somewhat personal question?”

“Who questions much shall learn much,” his roommate replied with a slight smile before closing the book and giving him his attention.

The Francis Bacon quote couldn’t help but ease Combeferre’s tight nervous posture. This was his best friend of almost two years, and they had long since become comfortable around each other. There was nothing wrong with asking questions, and part of him wondered why none of the Amis had thought to do this before. After all, everyone spent way too much energy trying to figure it out themselves.

The question was carefully crafted. Combeferre wasn’t sure if Grantaire was aware of his feelings for Enjolras, if Enjolras had been made aware of them, or if it was even the issue in question. His roommate would never just admit to what had happened, or admit to being upset over Grantaire’s disappearance, but he would show a response to relevant questioning. Not much of a response, but enough for Combeferre to get a better understanding of what he might be dealing with.

“Forgive me for asking after so long, but I’m curious as to what sexual orientation you identify as,” he said thoughtfully.

Enjolras’ reaction was vastly different from what Combeferre had been expecting. Instead of a kneejerk response, he was met with raised eyebrows and a vaguely surprised expression. After a moment though, Enjolras schooled his features back to mildly amused, and turned his chair further away from his desk to give Combeferre his full attention.

“I suppose I’ve never given it much thought. As you know, I didn’t much relate to my peers back in secondary school. Plus, I’ve always been too busy with my work for it to really be an issue.”

Combeferre nodded, letting him continue.

“I’m aware that everyone thinks of me as asexual and aromantic. And for the most part, I’m content to assume the same as well, although it could just as easily be my priorities and lack of a history of romantic interests,” Enjolras answered thoughtfully, clearly taking great care around asexuality issues. “Whichever it is, I doubt that it matters much. If circumstances change in the future where these questions become important, I will take the time to investigate them.”

It was a true politician’s answer, but Combeferre could see some of the subtext running underneath it. He could tell that Enjolras had been genuinely surprised by the question, and hadn’t had the chance to think about it. So clearly, whatever had happened between Enjolras and Grantaire had nothing to do with that.

“Perhaps you could clarify something for me as well,” Enjolras said, and Combeferre sat up in attention.

“I’ll try.”

“Explain to me everyone’s fascination with my orientation.”

“They’re a bunch of gossiping hyenas that have no boundaries,” Combeferre said immediately, getting a smile from his roommate. Then he paused for a second, and considered the question. “Also because they’re your friends and they want you to be happy.”

Enjolras’ expression suddenly darkened.

“And my relationship status is clearly holding me back?” he asked harshly.

“No,” Combeferre reassured quickly, trying to assuage his roommate’s temper. “The mystery draws their focus.”

The blond relaxed his expression, accepting that. Several moments passed in silence before his roommate sighed and rested his elbows on his legs.

“They might have asked me if they wished to know,” Enjolras said with a slight grumble.

“A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open,” Combeferre said with a teasing smile, quoting Francis Bacon right back at his roommate.

The blond looked up at him, eyebrows raised. Somehow, he had startled him. Whatever he had hit, Combeferre decided not to dig deeper and risk Enjolras shutting down entirely. So he carefully stood up and made to leave. Before he took off however, he rested his hand comfortingly on his roommate’s shoulder.

“Sometimes people have trouble asking the important questions; afraid of how it’ll look, and afraid of what they’ll discover.”

With that, he retracted his hand and left Enjolras alone; whether to his work or to his thoughts, Combeferre had no way of knowing. All he could do is hope that he’d helped in some way. 


	3. You Don’t Know All My Failings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have nothing but respect for the sport of rugby, and all those who consider themselves fans of the sport. Don't kill me. 
> 
> Also, thank you all for the amazing support I've been getting with the series. Hope you enjoy!

To say no more was spoken on the matter would be the fucking understatement of the year. Éponine knew firsthand how good Grantaire was at disappearing when he wanted to; she’d helped him in at least half of his escapes, guarding his back and snarling at anyone who tried to approach. But this was a first. Never before had she been a part of the group he was hiding from, and it unnerved her.

Every morning she would wake up to a post-it and a cup of coffee, letting her know that he had come home, and he was okay. The Post-it and coffee weren’t new developments, as Grantaire was always out the door and at the Musain hours before she woke up, but he was usually home before her. Unless he went out drinking or was bartending for one of the few bars he occasionally worked for, he would always be at home with dinner for them.

The food she found in the fridge got progressively healthier, and one day she even found a bowl of _organic_ apples on the counter. So he had managed to find a steady bartending job, and even went out of his way to say to her with food that he wasn’t angry.

But she still hadn’t seen him.

No one had. Grantaire stopped going to the Amis meetings, fell out of contact with all of the guys, and utterly dropped off the radar. Courfeyrac and Bahorel had approached her separately about a week after he went radio silent, asking where he had gone and why no one could get a hold of him. Even though he was avoiding her, she still felt that protective instinct flush over her. And so she gave them half-truths, saying that he’d needed to work more and that she barely saw him as well.

Every morning she would wake up and Grantaire’s sheets would reek of alcohol and sweat. Éponine couldn’t understand how he was doing it; going to the Musain at 4am, bartending until 1am. And somehow, he drank himself disgusting in between. It was fucking inhuman and she just wanted to see her best friend. Wrought with alcohol sweats, panicked and shaking, exhausted and lost; she didn’t care. She was counting the days of this self-imposed isolation of his, and she was worried out of her skull.

Jehan approached her after three weeks and pulled her into a silent hug. Had it been anyone else, she would’ve cracked a joke and shoved them off. She was Éponine Thénardier, and she was completely fine. But this was Jean Prouvaire; the sweetest, most intuitive person in the history of the world. So she briefly rested her chin on his shoulder, and squeezed back once before pulling away.

“Something went very wrong, didn’t it?”

“Maybe,” she conceded reluctantly.

“Just tell him we miss him, and his chair is waiting for him.”

Éponine didn’t tell the poet that Grantaire was hiding from her as well. She didn’t say that he wouldn’t believe her if she did tell him. She didn’t say how utterly preposterous it was that she was all but programed to protect him from people, including them. That she felt the urge to protect him from Jehan was nonsensical at best, but it was all she could do.

Enjolras didn’t approach her once. The student leader didn’t even look at her in meetings. He behaved and carried himself exactly the same as he always did, if not a bit stiffer. She wanted to hate him for it. This emotionally constipated sophomore was the best friend Grantaire has had in years; how dare he not even ask about his disappearance?

She had to keep reminding herself that this wasn’t his fault. Enjolras hadn’t done anything beyond inviting Grantaire to a class. There was nothing in that offer that Grantaire needed protecting from. Just because her best friend felt the instinct to run and hide at the possibility doesn’t mean Enjolras deserved to be walled off. Granted, she didn’t really need to. The blond activist walled himself off regardless. Éponine doubted that anyone, save maybe Combeferre, could see beyond the wall anyway. 

She just hated that he hadn’t asked about him.

A month and a half after Grantaire’s vanishing act, six weeks of not seeing her best friend, she finally heard from Enjolras, and it was entirely possible that made her despise him more. That he was aware that something was wrong just proved that he had eyes, but the fact that it took nearly two months to find the time to ask about him made it so much worse. He had become one of the most important people in Grantaire’s life within a few weeks, and it was like he couldn’t be bothered to notice or care when he all but disappeared.

**Just tell me he’s alive and not in a ditch somewhere, unconscious from alcohol poisoning.**

The wording gave her pause, but the timing was still too unbelievable. She refused to answer him.

A few days later, Éponine finally saw her roommate again but it was far from the circumstances she had hoped. She had been woken up sometime around 12:30 am by her phone ringing near her head. Although the number was local she didn’t recognize it, so she sat up in bed and picked up warily.

“Yes?”

“Hello, my name’s Doug. I’m a bartender at Sully’s Pub. We have a man here who’s in no condition to drive home.”

Éponine swallowed painfully. She should have expected this, and in hindsight, she was amazed that it hadn’t happened sooner. She knew Sully’s Pub intimately by now; it was that smoky little Irish Bar downtown. It was clean enough but the booze was a bit too pricy for college kids, which is probably why it was one of Grantaire’s favorites.

“How’d you get this number?” she asked to confirm what she already suspected.

“He has a dogtag with your number and address on it.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

She had hung up before she had thought this through. Unlike most of her stomping grounds, Sully’s was much too far away to walk to, and there was no way she could drag the drunk that far anyway. Grantaire had undoubtedly taken the minivan, so that was no help. Maybe once she could have come up with a better solution, or maybe a few months ago she would’ve just tried to walk there anyway. But things had changed since then; it just hadn’t hit her how enormously they’d changed until she had already called the contact on her phone.

“Yeah, ‘lo.” The sleep addled voice on the other end of the line grumbled at her, but she could tell it was laced with concern.

“I need to ask a favor of you.”

Bahorel was there in minutes, looking tired and grumpy but saying nothing. His neon ginger hair was short but still wild, the entire left side of his head was flattened against his scalp and sticking up in various directions. He wore faded jeans and a brown hoodie, but she didn’t think he was wearing a shirt underneath it. Bahorel had literally just stepped out of bed, put on whatever clothes he absolutely needed, and ran to help her.

“So I’m due an explanation or two,” he said after she buckled herself into the shotgun and they had started driving again. “Where’s he been all this time?”

“He really has been working more lately. He’s been taking up bartending jobs when he can get them for extra money. And doing this when he can, so it seems,” she said with a sigh.

Next to her, Bahorel scowled in confusion and flicked his eyes to her for a moment before turning back to the road. The ginger didn’t understand anything, and therefore he had decided to say nothing. She couldn’t begin to express how much she appreciated it, so she just snuggled further down into the worn leather seat, and sighed in relief.

She hadn’t anticipated dozing off in the seat, but fifteen minutes later, she was slowly pulled out of sleep by the sensation of Bahorel squeezing the tips of her fingers. It was bizarre; most people wake someone up by shaking their shoulders or arms. Of course, the giant hulk of a junior was known for doing strange things like that. He would never walk up to her in the Corinth from behind; always moving wide and approaching from the front. It wasn’t that he wasn’t comfortable around her, they had gone so far as to spar before.

When asked about his care around her, and to a similar degree, Musichetta and Cosette, he shrugged and blamed the fighting, saying, “After a while, you just get really aware of your own body space, and everyone else’s around you.”

She would never admit that she was grateful.

Éponine yawned and stepped out before turning and slamming the door behind her. Around the back of the car they met up again and began walking across the parking lot towards Sully’s.

“So, what was the hand holding about?”

He shrugged. “Just figured you wouldn’t appreciate waking up to a linebacker hovering over you. Especially in this tiny car.”

They didn’t look at each other. Éponine didn’t even afford herself a moment to glance at this strange breed of over-respectful football player, and feel grateful that he was her friend. All she could dare to focus on was Grantaire, likely passed out drunk on the toilet.

It turns out she didn’t even need to look as far as the men’s room to find him. She immediately found him slumped across the bar, hanging off the counter, and the angry-looking man next to him. It took less than half a second to size up exactly what was happening. A mildly drunk Grantaire was usually just a happy drunk, but she was currently staring at him in a rarer form; her roommate was completely sloshed. She hadn’t seen him this drunk in a long time, and that was dangerous; it meant something had happened. But it also meant that something bad was likely to happen. Utterly hammered Grantaire always let his mouth run rampant and unchecked, and he was rarely trying to be mean or offensive, but he had a bad habit of offending anyway. Tonight, it looks like his cynicism was directed towards one of those hyper butch sports, like football or wrestling, and he was talking to the wrong men.

“Nah, but you have to admit, it’s totally gay. I mean come on!”

The man he was hanging on, and the two other men behind him seemed to puff up in anger, as if they were about to descend on him like a piece of meat. Granted, in that state he basically was. Bahorel snarled next to her, and she found that she was already tensed for the possibility of a fight. Her hands were near the waistband of her jeans. Neither wasted a second before approaching the rising argument. Éponine went to stand protectively next to her roommate, while Bahorel hovered to the side of the three guys. They looked fairly large and tough, but Bahorel was a few inches taller, and broader. The ginger had his arms crossed making his presence as intimidating as possible.

“Hey, ‘Ponine,” Grantaire slurred horribly, breath heavy with alcohol, “Back me up here; rugby is totally gay!”

“C’mon R, time to go home,” Éponine said through gritted teeth, avoiding the question.

“Hang on, we’re not done talking about this yet,” the man said, anger bleeding through his words, and threat hanging on his voice.

“Yeah you are,” Bahorel said in a thinly veiled joviality. The guys might not understand, but Éponine recognized that as his last chance voice.

“I still had more to say on the matter,” he said again, taking a step closer towards Grantaire, and therefore Éponine.

She didn’t have time to think, didn’t have time to remember that Bahorel was there to have her back. She could smell the booze on this guy’s breath, and the two guys behind him looked far too willing to back him up in a fight. That they had no qualms about starting a fight that might include a woman said enough about their character, or their level of inebriation. Every warning bell went off in her head, and in an instant she grabbed the knife tucked into her belt and flicked it open. Subtly, she held it up for the man to see, trying to avoid anyone else seeing it.

In her peripherals she saw Bahorel staring at her in surprise, but his expression quickly disappeared as his focus redirected to the men in front of them. All three had sobered considerably.

“I’d say you’ve spoken your piece,” she said while tugging Grantaire away by his arm. Drunk and unaware of the gravity of the moment, he was easy to move. Éponine shoved her moronic roommate towards Bahorel, and took a few steps back before repocketing the knife and nodding at them once. “Good night.”

They walked silently back towards the car, and let Grantaire throw up in the bushes of the parking lot before finding the minivan and taking the keys from the drunk. After a bit of struggle, they managed to spill her roommate into the shotgun and buckle him up.

“I’ll follow,” Bahorel said stoically, hopping into his own car.

She drove silently, glancing at Grantaire as he slowly passed out on the drive. He always fell asleep in the car after he’d been drinking. When they stopped at a red light she brushed some of the corkscrew curls away from his face, and stared at her best friend. Something must have happened; Grantaire never got _this_ drunk for no reason. If only he’d talk to her, maybe she could help.

Éponine hadn’t expected Bahorel to hop out of the car when they pulled into the entrance of the apartment. She figured that he wanted to make sure they got home safe, and would take off once they made it to the door. Instead, he parked next to her and hopped out.

“Whatever this is, it really can’t go on.” Bahorel said as he swung a limp Grantaire over his shoulder and followed her towards the door. It took her a moment of fiddling with the keys to get into the building, but finally she got it open.

“I know,” she replied sadly, and held open the door for him.

With a lot more care than she would have attributed to the tall man, Bahorel shifted his hold on Grantaire so instead of holding him like a sack of toys, he was carrying him bridal style. Without breaking a sweat, he brought him up the two flights of stairs, and waited as Éponine fiddled again with their apartment door. When she finally got in, she directed him to their room, where Bahorel lay Grantaire on his side on the mattress pad.

She could see what their style of life must look like from his eyes. The apartment was run down to begin with, and sparse was an understatement. The couch caught the eye as the most expensive thing in the entire apartment. Their shared bedroom was filled only with a foam mattress pad and an air bed; the sheets were stolen from the college extras.

“This goes without saying, but don’t tell any of the others about this.”

She didn’t even know what she was talking about anymore; the apartment or tonight’s incident. The nervous energy from the almost fight still rushed through her bloodstream, and she curled her shoulders instinctively in a defensive stance.

Bahorel only laughed pleasantly and ruffled her hair affectionately, almost like an older brother.

“Are you kidding? Of course not,” he said jokingly, but the truth in the words bled through. “This might break the heart Enjolras is still pretending he doesn’t have.”

Éponine was overcome with a wave of appreciation and undiluted affection for this stocky man. A few months ago she hadn’t expected to have people that she could rely on like this. Bahorel wasn’t a part of anything that had happened, and had no reason to follow any of this. She would have even guessed that Bahorel would be largely oblivious to what was going on with Grantaire, and how it related to Enjolras. But he seemed to understand more than she gave him credit for, and said nothing. Despite how he looked and acted, she was blown away by his nonchalant consideration.

With a grin on her face, she walked over and hugged the ginger football player before standing on her tip-toes to press a kiss to his forehead.

“Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you’re just a dumb jock, okay?” she urged sweetly, and let him go.

For a moment, Bahorel stood frozen in place, then a lopsided grin spread across his face. He punched her lightly in the arm before backed towards the door with a chuckle, not losing that dopey smile.

“You tell Grantaire to fucking invite me next time he heads out on a spree like that,” he shot out as if it was an afterthought, accenting it with one final wave. “G’night Ep.”

Éponine locked the door behind him before spinning around and scanning the apartment. All happiness disappeared from her features as she took in the scene around her. Besides the three apples and an orange in a bowl on the counter, nothing looked out of the ordinary. And yet, there had to be a difference, because Grantaire never got drunk like _that_.

She searched the apartment thoroughly, even scouring the bathroom and the closet, but there was nothing triggering that she could find. The art supplies were buried away, his cell phone was abandoned by the floss like it had been this morning.

Finally her eyes landed on his laptop open on the couch. It had gone into sleep mode from being untouched for so long, because Grantaire never shut down his computer properly. He would either slam it closed or otherwise leave it open to power down or die.

Without a second thought as to his privacy (because he had forfeited it when he stopped talking to her, and really, they’d moved past that point long ago) she pressed the power button and ran her fingers over the mouse pad several times to wake it up. Slowly, the screen turned on, and the picture reformed to reveal that he’d been on Facebook.

That in and of itself was weird. Neither of them were Facebook people, seeing as neither of them were connected enough, or social enough to get much use of it. Éponine had a few friends from high school that she kept in vague contact with, but Grantaire set his up entirely because of pressure from her. She didn’t think that he’d touched it in years.

The computer awoke to a message page; he had messaged someone privately. Her stomach dropped when she saw who.

He’d messaged Christopher.

Everything made sense.

It was clear that he’d used the vocal recognition she’d bought for him to write it out, because he never would’ve managed the spelling for the entire rambling message by himself. The punctuation was non-existent, and nothing was capitalized, but that didn’t matter. Not to her, and definitely not to Christopher. If he even decided to read it, she doubted that the grammar and semantics would be his chief concern. Hesitantly, she read through the message.

**i don’t expect you to respond to this. fuck it’s been three years. honestly by now i expect you to hate me and it’s okay. i hate me. i cannot tell you how much i fucking hate me. and i know how selfish it is to interrupt your life after you’ve been getting on with it for so long now. i know it’s selfish to say that i just needed to tell you something but dammit… i’m sorry. i’m so fucking sorry for everything that happened. i’m sorry i let you believe in me i’m sorry i made promises to be better i never believed them so maybe they didn’t count but i broke them anyway. i’m so unbelievably… i’m sorry i ran without seeing you. i couldn’t see you. your life is probably awesome now. you’re in college getting on with your life forgetting the hellhole that was high school and now you think great, airs back. i swear that’s not it i don’t want to ruin your life. i just want… fuck i don’t even know what i’m just stupid and sorry. i’m just so damn sorry for all of it.**

Éponine stared at the screen for several minutes, trying to decipher her best friend’s actions. Enjolras had scared him so terribly by putting some measure of belief in him, and she had rubbed salt in the wounds of his panic attack, comparing the blond activist to Christopher. No matter many ways she sliced it, she couldn’t comprehend _Grantaire_ having the courage to message Christopher, apologizing for everything that had happened three years ago. What she could picture perfectly was her best friend staring at the message for hours, unable to read it to make sure it was saying everything he wanted correctly, too terrified to send it.

Éponine wanted so badly to take this as a good sign, a sign that he was facing his fears and trying to move on from the past that had defined him for so long. But as she scanned the block of text, all she could see was him kowtowing in front of Christopher, asking him for a verbal browbeating. Grantaire wanted to be insulted, screamed out, and punished by the person he believed he let down the most. He was looking for Christopher to affirm everything he thought about himself, and give himself a reason to disappear into isolation again. This time for good.

The scariest part of it all was that Christopher might give him exactly what he wanted.

If Christopher did message him back confirming everything Grantaire believed about himself, insulting and raging at him for whatever wrong his best friend thought he’d committed, what would happen? Grantaire would get all the affirmation he needed from one of the few people who mattered. What would that embolden him to do?

Could he hurt himself? Run away again, this time without her? Go wild again like he did when they left? Would he…?

This had flown out of her control too quickly. From what little she could see of him, Éponine could see her best friend spiraling, plummeting downwards into his own mind. And what’s worse, she didn’t think she could pull him out this time. It was too huge, there was too much at stake. When he looked at her, all he would see was her student status.

Making up her mind quickly, Éponine dug out her cell phone and flipped through her text conversations until she found the one she was looking for. Before her protective instincts flew up and interfered, before her pride could convince her that Grantaire was her responsibility and no one else’s, her hands flew over the screen and typed out a message. Refusing to dwell on it, or truly think about what she was about to do, she hit send.

**meet me @ the musain 4 lunch tomorrow.**

The reply was almost instantaneous. **When?**

**12:30**

**Okay.**

She was really doing this. She was really asking for help.


	4. You Don't Know That I Miss You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Et Voila! 
> 
> Next chapter, I promise that you'll even get some answers.

Enjolras’ teachers had always told him (and his parents, though they never cared enough to do anything) that he looked like such a lonely child. But they had been wrong; Enjolras may have been alone, but he was never lonely. Loneliness implied a relative sadness at the prospect of isolation, and it had never felt like any great tragedy. His parents were cold and distant, and so he grew up the same way, a very chaste and serious child. Their attention always had a deeper motivation, so he had quickly learned to watch their actions. He saw that he existed for a purpose and chose to embrace it, choosing to learn from his father’s behavior.

The kids at school always seemed too immature for him; they didn’t have anything in common so Enjolras hadn’t wasted the effort to try and find a bridge. They all came into this world for some reason or another, be it parents’ love or an accident. But their reasons for existing didn’t interfere with their quality of life. His did; and even though he hadn’t understood at the time, he knew enough not to let them serve as distractions.

When he was eight years old, his father began teaching him about the company he worked for and the keys to shrewd business. His father gave him advice, like to always partner with someone higher up than him. Anyone lower than him had nothing to offer. Enjolras took the words to heart, and ignored the kids in school even further. Or never make a deal anywhere but in his home territory. A deal was nothing more than two parties trying to gain resources from each other, sneakily trying to take the upper hand. Giving the other party the advantage of familiarity was a sign of weakness. It didn’t take much for Enjolras to connect the dots, even then. He was bred to become an ideal business partner to his father, and then eventually his successor.

Most children were raised believing that their fathers were all-powerful. Enjolras learned early on that his father was almost as close as a human could come to omnipotence, and being taught how far this would take him in life, he agreed to learn as much as he could from him.

When he was nine years old, his father had taken him on one of his business deals, so he could get a sense of what sorts of transactions he would have to become familiar with. His father had explained to him that this was merely an investment pitch, and that _if_ he decided to make a deal, the terms and agreement would be discussed back home in Manhattan.

Enjolras had the flu at the time; it had been going around the school, and really shouldn’t have gone but his father had insisted, stuffing him full of Nyquil whenever his coughing and congestion got too bad. Because of that, he generally didn’t remember much of the trip or of the business deal. He thinks there was something about routes and some kind of children’s program. Nothing that his drugged nine year-old mind could hold onto.

The most important thing that had happened was the boy. Enjolras didn’t even know if any of it was real, he had been swimming in cold medicine, but he had remembered a boy knocking at the window of the motel they were staying at, and looking embarrassed when he answered. The kid, almost his age mumbled “ _sorry, wrong room,”_ and had disappeared before the blond could stop him.

Today, it seemed ridiculous, but as a nine year old, he’d been sure that the mysterious, gangly boy had been looking for his father, and that he needed something. After all, his father was still all-powerful in his eyes. Plus, he ran a large corporation, so it made sense that his father would have been able to help the kid.

Enjolras woke up the next day to their packed bags and his father’s insistence that they leave before the plane took off without them. Unsure as to whether the boy was just a fever dream, Enjolras didn’t mention him to his father. That didn’t stop him however, from remembering the face at the window. Aspects of image were hazy from Nyquil dreams, but in other ways shockingly crisp. Where Enjolras’ features were soft and still held onto baby fat, the boy was all sharp angles and child-sized eyes. Whatever that kid had wanted, Enjolras couldn’t forget it. He dove into the company, trying to figure out what the boy could have needed from his father.

It had taken him less than a year to learn through extensive research that his father wouldn’t have helped that boy if he could. His corporation was an entirely self-sustaining operation. It supported its stockholders at the expense of the people they were marketing to. Enjolras slowly realized that his father may be as powerful as Superman, but he didn’t help people. With that realization came disgust, and hatred quickly followed.

Enjolras still couldn’t relate well with others, but it wasn’t important. His peers didn’t matter. He spent all of his time educating himself about the world around him, and what part his family played in it. And the day he realized just how nauseatingly rich he and his family was, Enjolras nearly ran away from home. With all the problems facing the less fortunate in the world, he felt disgusted by his wealth.

Over time that embarrassment turned to conviction. He was a part of the fortunate few, so he planned to make the most of it. He donated to charities, devoted his time to fighting homelessness and hunger, sought to understand the complex politics of the country and the world around him, and formed his opinions on what steps need to be taken to fix the corruption and injustices of the world.

It never concerned him that he didn’t connect to the world he was trying to save. It never even crossed his mind until he got to college and met Combeferre. Enjolras had intended to share a living space with the man but not interact; there was no obvious advantage to allying with him. But then he spoke to Combeferre; they got along well, and held similar beliefs. Within weeks, they were already working together to create the social activism group that eventually became les Amis de l’ABC.

It never occurred to him until a few months later that he regarded these people not just as his trusted lieutenants and intellectual equals, but as his friends. It was a strange sensation to say the least. Even though most of them were more open in their affections and more relaxed in their pastimes, he rarely needed to explain himself to them. Sure, they told him that he needed to lighten up, but they understood if some of the mechanics of friendship confused him and if he got uncomfortable, they rarely pushed.

In his more maudlin moments, he sometimes wonders to himself if this is what family was like, and if he had somehow found it in this unlikely group of college students. All he knew concretely was that for the first time, his teachers never approached him concerned that he seemed lonely, and it was a relief.

Although, it was possible that, for the first time, Enjolras was experiencing loneliness. So far, he didn’t like it.

It had been almost three days since Combeferre had talked to him, and he still had no idea what to make of the strange conversation. He couldn’t even focus on it though, because all he could think about was how impossibly silent his phone was. Every time any of the Amis texted him about a meeting, he always started slightly, half hoping to hear from Grantaire. Every time he refused to show disappointment.

Grantaire was a relatively new friend, he was argumentative, and sarcastic, and cynical. More often than not he was drunk. His father would pass over him without a second glance but despite everything, Grantaire was secretly, absurdly brilliant. And Enjolras had almost made the same judgment calls on him as well. At first, Enjolras hadn’t been able to stand the drunk. Had Combeferre and the others not been there to point out his harsh judgments, Enjolras might never have realized just how much his father had succeeded with his protégé.

Then with the rally… well, he still wasn’t sure what he’d intended to say to Grantaire with the rally. Be it an apology or a peace offering, that rally had been the bridge that offered a new kind of understanding. After that equal footing was reached, Enjolras hadn’t quite been able to stop like he’d thought he would. Instead, the new goal became making sense of the cynic. Slowly, he thought that he was starting to understand the man who claimed to believe in nothing.

Months of debating over texts and in person at meetings had started to give Enjolras a clue of his argument structure, and the tricks he played to twist a topic. He had grown accustomed to getting out of class expecting a text refuting whatever argument he had made. It became as much of a game of wits as a battle of beliefs, and left both of them red faced and breathless from yelling and laughing.

And then there would be moments in those arguments, brief moments, where Grantaire would drop the amused smirk and the sharp quips, and look at him with different eyes. Enjolras played everything close to the vest, but Grantaire was the complete opposite. His emotions played out on his face and in his posture, everything was so close to the surface that, at times, it baffled him. But those quiet moments, Enjolras felt just a hint closer to truly seeing Grantaire.

But then, out of the blue, the texts stopped. The cynic no longer showed up to meetings, and had taken new shifts, so no one saw him anymore. At first the others asked questions, but after a few weeks of being unable to find him they had given up trying. There seemed to be a general consensus in opinion that Grantaire would eventually come back to meetings if he wanted to hang out with them, and if he didn’t then there was nothing that any one of them could do.

It didn’t stop Courfeyrac from pestering him nonstop about “what he’d done” and demanding that Enjolras apologize for “whatever dumb ass thing you’ve said.” No matter how much he insisted that he hadn’t done anything, Courfeyrac refused to believe him, or drop the matter for long. It was only just barely that Enjolras kept himself from snapping at the law student.

Enjolras, who normally prided himself on his careful control over his emotions, could barely keep track of his feelings on the whole matter, flashing between worry and anger so quickly it nearly gave him whiplash. He barely had time to register the many scenarios of terrible accidents, and hospital visits before others entered his mind.

There were times when Enjolras irritated even himself with his own impatience, and this definitely qualified.

He downright refused to reach out to Grantaire first. Enjolras had been the last one to send a text between the two of them, and therefore etiquette dictated that Grantaire be the one to reach out first. Sending the first text would suggest a desperation that he didn’t want to display.

“ _Your emotions make you weak, boy,_ ” his father had told him several times. That above all else was the cardinal lesson. “ _Let anyone see your weaknesses, and they’ll be sure to use them against you._ ”

Enjolras resented that he still held himself to those archaic beliefs, no matter how necessary they were for his career. And yet, this couldn’t go on. He had no clue where Grantaire was or what had happened to him so long ago. His phone was far too quiet, but he didn’t know how to say that he missed their arguments. Didn’t know how to verbalize that what they had made sense, and losing it had thrown him off balance. That he still didn’t fully understand the whole friendship thing and if he made a mistake he had no way of knowing.

With a sigh and a show of unbelievable cowardice on his part, he picked up his iPhone and sent a text message, not to Grantaire, but to Éponine.

**Just tell me he’s alive and not in a ditch somewhere unconscious from alcohol poisoning.**

Of course, he didn’t really expect her to answer. Despite the few months she’s spent coming to meetings and finding a place for herself within the Amis, his most vivid memory of her was still the night she punched him in the face and promised to stab him for hurting her best friend. Éponine quickly became known amongst the group as the person not to fuck with, and being smart as she was, she could probably see through his text.

Therefore, he was taken aback when his phone vibrated a few days later, revealing a text from her. It hadn’t even mattered that he was in the library and cell phone use was strictly not allowed because she wanted to meet him for lunch. She was willing to talk to him, and maybe help him understand. He got the information for when to meet and quickly agreed.

By lunch time the next day, his jaw physically hurt from clenching it. He walked towards the Musain, his pace quicker than usual and his muscles tensed. Unable to explain the anxiety if he tried, he focused instead on the terrible condition of the city’s streets, and recited in his head the work he had to accomplish before classes in two days.

Enjolras arrived at the Musain at 12:30 precisely, and searched the counter instinctively. As he’d expected, he saw Musichetta’s smiling face, but no familiar head of wild black curls. A small prick of disappointment wormed its way through his careful control before he quickly banished it. Glancing around, he spotted Éponine was sitting at the two person table in the corner window seat, reading a book. Without a second thought, he approached her.

“I hope I haven’t kept you,” he said, sitting down in the chair opposite her.

“Not at all,” she replied, putting a bookmark in her book before closing it and looking at him. “You said you were worried about R.”

“I haven’t heard from him in weeks,” Enjolras said, unsure if he was saying it to confirm her statement or correct it.

“And you haven’t tried contacting him because…?”

She was testing him.

“He hasn’t answered anybody else. Why would I be any different?”

“Normally I’d say that’s complete bullshit, but you just happen to be right this time.”

“So you know what this is about?”

“Yep.”

“Do you plan on telling me what’s going on, or did you just call me here to gloat?”

“Well, what do you know about what’s going on?”

“I know absolutely nothing. Just that Courf keeps nagging me to apologize to Grantaire, and refuses to believe me when I say I haven’t done anything.”

Éponine actually laughed at that, a short and bitter-sounding snort. When she looked back up at him, he instantly felt something pass between the two of them, an understanding of sorts. They weren’t particularly close to each other, but by now they had so many common friends that he couldn’t help but see her as an ally. And with her approaching him after all this time to talk about Grantaire, she must need something. This was far from camaraderie, but an unspoken trust passed between them.

“For once, you actually _haven’t_ done anything wrong. Congratulations,” she said the last word sarcastically, but there was no bite to it. The freshman in front of him just looked tired and sad. “R’s just afraid.”

Enjolras stared at her, baffled. They couldn’t be talking about the same cheerful drunk with a quip ready for every occasion. Grantaire, infuriating Grantaire who let everything slide off his back seamlessly was afraid. It didn’t compute, but Éponine knew the cynic better than he could claim to, and she said with absolute certainty that their friend was afraid. He couldn’t help but take her word, and his brain tried to fit the pieces together. The other times, back in October and November when Grantaire had been impossible to locate; was he also afraid back then?

“Afraid of what?” he asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

Éponine sighed and offered him a sympathetic smile, only worrying him further. She never showed him sympathy.

“Afraid of you.”


	5. You Don’t Know How Hard It’s Been

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! I offer you (most) of the answers you've been waiting almost 55k words for! Hope it lives up to expectations.
> 
> Also, side note: This seems to continue the pattern of taking people out for food when things are bad. In my head, this comes entirely from the fact that Combeferre had to force food into him during hibernations. And if Combeferre did it (and it worked) then it must help others too. :)

Before today, Éponine would have been hard pressed to find evidence in her memory banks of the fearless Enjolras displaying actual human emotions. But the expression that flickered across his face at her words, only for a second, was not one that she would soon be forgetting. To be honest, he looked as if she had just punched him again. Except his nose wasn’t bleeding this time.

“Look, it’s not you,” she started, before realizing exactly what that sounded like and amending it. “Okay, well part of it is you. You were kind of a dick to him when you first met, but you’ve paid your dues for that one. Most of this boils down to a childhood sob story that never went away.”

He stared at her intently, not saying anything and waiting for her to continue. Instead of being intimidated by the fiery-eyed sophomore like most people were, she just stared at him right back. This was her best friend on the line, and she refused to screw around with this.

“That’s your easy out if you want to take it,” she said, hoping she sounded more tongue-in-cheek and less like she was waiting to be let down. “Grantaire’s more fucked up than you rich little city boy can imagine, and if you’re just going to dick around and fuck him up more, then I’d rather you left now.”

Across the small table his eyes flared up in anger, looking ready to protest for an instant before suddenly sobering. Enjolras broke eye contact and glanced down at the table with a tiny scowl on his face, and she wished she could hear what he was thinking. She was actually considering telling this kid about everything, but she had no way of knowing if this was the biggest mistake ever.

“I just... want my friend back.”

Oh fuck, he sounded sincere. Enjolras, the fearless student leader sounded confused, and small, and sad, and way too sincere. And for the first time, Éponine wondered if it was possible that, for whatever reason, Enjolras needed Grantaire just as much as Grantaire needed him.

“I met R when he was in fourth grade,” she began with a sigh, unable to believe that she was honestly doing this. “He was always one of those quiet, moody, shy kids when it came to people he didn’t know, but with the few people he did let know him… well, it was like he always had something more to prove.”

“What do you mean?” Enjolras asked, pursing his lips in confusion.

Éponine couldn’t help but scoff because seriously, where was this guy from?

“Look, you’re confident about who you are, and your abilities. You know what you believe in, what you want, and how you plan to get it. He never had that. R spent so much of his childhood trying to prove to everyone else that he was worth more than they gave him credit for. Maybe because if he could prove it to them, then they could convince him in return.”

“But he had trouble learning how to read and write and do math, so his parents put him on Adderall, and Prozac, and Citalopram, and whatever else. I didn’t know about all of it, but he refused to take them. Finally, his teachers just stuck him in the remedial track, and wiped their hands of him.”

“They never thought that he could be dyslexic?” Enjolras asked disbelievingly.

Éponine looked at Enjolras, thoroughly pissed off, and looking like he wanted to unleash some divine wrath down upon their old school system. He was angry that dyslexia never occurred to any of the teachers, just like she had been.

“That’s what I’ve always thought, but it was never diagnosed. By the time I was old enough to make that argument, R just didn’t want to hear it. He’d just resigned himself to being the class retard.”

“They let him believe that? A student who’s struggling should receive extra help and support…”

“That’s what happens in an economically depressed school system; the teachers give up on the _hopeless case_ ,” she said, cutting off his rant before it turned into a protest for education reform. “Then other kids see it and never let him forget it.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Kids can be cruel,” she said with a dismissive shrug.

At that point Enjolras sat completely rigid in his chair, trying so hard to not look affected by what he was hearing and failing so spectacularly. The poly-sci major had to be well versed in the education chasms of the day, so he’d probably read some textbook description of learning disability shaming and thought it preposterous. She could practically see the gears turning in his mind as he clenched his jaw. For a second, she was afraid he might actually start a one-man riot. Then he turned to her, and something shifted.

“There’s more.” Enjolras said, not a question, just a silent seething resignation.

She nodded in confirmation before continuing.

“It was bad enough that his teachers gave up, but his parents did too. They were good enough parents; both had jobs, and they took care of him where it mattered. They were just disappointed, and kind of stopped trying to invest in his learning,” Éponine said, sadly. “Something just died in him around then. He stopped trying to do well and focused on how to get by. But grades were always this point of shame for him.”

Éponine still remembered crawling into his room late at nights when she’d run away from home and curling up in his bed. He would always trace patterns on her back, but sometime around then he started trying to comfort her with words like “it only hurts if you care.” She had snapped at him one night over that, trying to explain that it hurt regardless, but immediately ended up calming him down when he started apologizing profusely and getting all worked up.

She understood why he always said that; it was something that he needed to believe at the time. His thinking was that maybe, if he didn’t care about his grades, then he wouldn’t mind being called _stupid_ or _retard_ , and maybe his parents’ disappointment wouldn’t hurt. Of course, it never worked, because Grantaire did care. He cared far too much.

“High school just made it worse,” Éponine said. “On top of the dyslexia and his parents, somehow kids started to get into their heads that he might be gay.”

Enjolras uncrossed his arms, and while his left arm stayed firmly wrapped around his stomach, his right hand quickly flew up to cover his mouth. Almost as if he was trying to hide the deep-set scowl on his face. The blond was no idiot; he could piece together Grantaire’s behavior from their second meeting. With the new information, she could practically envision the connections his mind was making, could practically hear his thoughts.

“Belatedly, I appreciate you punching me,” he said, voice muffled through the sieve of his hands.

Against all odds, she laughed. A sad and weary chuckle, but enough to leech some of the tension out of the air. Enjolras dragged his hand up and away from his face so he could card his fingers through his hair, and he was grinning slightly as well. Neither of them were happy with the past and how it impacted the present, but Enjolras had provided the opportunity for a break. For a moment, they could laugh over how stupid the blond had been several months ago.

“Are there any triggers of his that I haven’t hit yet?” he asked half-seriously.

“Oh just you wait,” she said with a weary chuckle. “It gets better.”

“Of course it does,” Enjolras said, then glanced quickly to the side and stood up. “I promised you lunch. Come on, I’ll buy you a croissant.”

“You don’t have to,” she said. For the first time in a while, they had actual food in their fridge. Three meals a day was almost an assurance, and only one of them consisted of sandwiches from the Earl. Éponine already hated asking the blond leader for his help with Grantaire; her pride could do without that further insult.

“I promised you lunch.” Enjolras simply repeated.

She stood up with Enjolras to tell him off, to say that she didn’t need his charity and that he hadn’t promised her anything. But then Éponine saw his expression and understood what the offer was. In an instant, she was reminded of all those days she’d return from her shared classes with Marius in a terrible mood and Grantaire would be ready with a hug, hot chocolate, and 90’s sitcoms. It was far from the same, but Enjolras was the most reserved person she’d ever met, so that fact was hardly surprising.

Enjolras was trying comfort her; a croissant was his way of conveying that he’s going to do everything he could to make it right. And it was a thank you as well, for trusting him with the information.

“Do you pay all of your informants this well?” she asked with a tired smile, acquiescing and pointing to the ham and cheese croissants in the glass case.

“Well, it was either Musichetta’s croissants or lots of crack, so…”

That got a genuine laugh out of her.

“So you do have a sense of humor.”

“No, it’s on loan,” he said with a small smirk. “How do you like your coffee?”

“Actually, could I have hot chocolate?” she asked after a moment.

He nodded and turned to Musichetta and ordered everything, exchanging pleasantries with her all the while. After a handful of minutes, their food and drinks were ready, and they brought it back to the table.

Wanting to drag the short reprieve on as long as possible, she took a couple of bites of the croissant (so much better than lots of crack) and chewed on the airy pastry slowly. The complimentary flavors of the butter and ham were sweet on her tongue, and she relished the taste. It wasn’t often that Éponine indulged in food like this, and it was wonderful. Enjolras, to his credit gave her time to eat and didn’t rush for her to continue the story. Even so, she could see him sitting far too tensely in his seat, and so she swallowed her food and took a sip of the hot chocolate to wash it down. Then she continued.

“As you can imagine, that’s where I came in. Before they got too suspicious, I jumped in, playing the role of clingy girlfriend. By the end of ninth grade, we had mastered the whole routine.  He would let me stay with him when I didn’t want to go home, and kept away unwanted attention. I would play the role of Girl Friday and keep him safe from everyone at school.”

“Then along came Christopher,” Éponine said with a sigh. This was the boy who had broken Grantaire for good, and she still remembered it with sadness. “After years of everybody assuming he was just the stupid kid, Christopher was placed next to him in history class, and they were paired together on some project. That kid just refused to let Grantaire fail.”

Enjolras tilted his head in confusion. This was the crux of the issue, and she could tell that he had no clue how it would all come together.

“Christopher was like a slave driver at first, but it worked. They’d spend hours in the back corners of libraries, hunting for audiobooks, reading to him, and finding other ways to help him understand.”

“Is that how he learned how to read?” Enjolras asked, quietly. “Because of Christopher?”

“Well, what little he can figure out, yeah. That’s all Christopher,” she said with a nod. “Grantaire is a very visual person, he can see something and understand it, or see how things fit together. History, human behavior, art, as you know… He’s great with patterns. Christopher saw that, and .helped him tap into it. Fuck, the kid did his research, looking up all these techniques to help teach reading to the dyslexic. Grantaire was really starting to believe in himself again.”

It hurt her to remember. Christopher had been a good kid as far as she knew. In the short five or six months Christopher had been in their lives, Éponine had taken to him pretty quickly as well. The kid might have looked baby-faced, but he was generally laid-back and well liked. And on top of that, he could hold his own and he cared enough to learn how to handle Grantaire. That had been three years ago, back before they’d ran away, and she had gone from an in-school guard to full-time protector.

Éponine still remembered Grantaire climbing through her window after the first time Christopher kissed him in the far stacks in the school library. She had never seen him so happy and so scared at the same time. He’d paced frantically around her room, switching between babbling things like _“Oh fuck, what if everyone finds out? Oh, this is bad,”_ and _“he kissed me! Of all people ‘Ponine,me!”_ Innocent as she’d been back then, she’d switched between reassuring him, congratulating him, and teasing him until he blushed.

“And then something happened,” Enjolras finished for her, not even having to guess. He just spoke with a sad resignation, that not even this story could have a happy ending.

“This one afternoon Grantaire appeared outside my bedroom in the midst of a panic attack,” she said in confirmation. “His hands and knees were skinned, and he sobbing and shaking. Completely incomprehensible. I’ve never in my life seen him worse off than that day; it took me almost an hour to calm him down enough to manage proper breathing, and he ran off before I could find out what happened.”

“How?”

Éponine blinked and looked at the stoic boy in front of her, puzzled.

“Huh?”

“How did you calm him down?”

“Like I said, R’s a very sensory person. I just had to keep him still and give him something to focus on,” she explained succinctly, not quite sure why this was what Enjolras was focusing on. “Usually that means sitting him down, letting him hold onto me, and talking to him. Y’know, reminding him of where he is and that he’s safe, or rambling about nothing in particular; anything to ground him.”

Éponine looked at the blond as he contemplated this, unsure as to what he intended to use the information for. Either way, Enjolras seemed to digest it and store the piece away quickly enough, then looked back to her. With an apologetic head tilt, he gestured for her to continue.

“Later that night R appeared again, stone-faced silent, eyes bloodshot, and just said _We’re leaving. Pack your shit._ He wouldn’t say what had happened, just focused on getting us the hell out of Dodge.”

Enjolras stared at her, utterly baffled.

“You just took off without a word to anybody? What about your parents? What about his parents? They never came looking for you?” he demanded angrily.

Éponine narrowed her eyes and sat up straighter, immediately defensive.

“If they did, they never found us,” she said bitterly. “I was just glad to be out, and parents were one of the topics that we never mentioned again. All I know about what happened that day was a headline in our town’s online newspaper about a hospitalized high schooler.”

That shut Enjolras up immediately, as he probably drew the same conclusions that she’d come to long ago. They hadn’t disclosed the high schooler’s name, but Éponine could run through any number of scenarios, with any number of victims.

“We just picked a direction and started driving. He shut down every time I tried to ask about Christopher, or school, or his parents, so I stopped asking. For the first time, he went wild. Everywhere we stopped he’d find a bar, get wildly drunk, and I wouldn’t see him for the rest of the night. It’s a wonder that we didn’t run out of money.”

“Was it?” Enjolras asked her guardedly.

She sighed in defeat, then admitted. “No, maybe not.”

Both were silent for a long time, unable to think of much else to say beyond that. Silently, she took another few bites of her croissant, despite the fact that her hunger had completely vanished. Éponine had never had the chance to admit to another person all these things she suspected about her best friend. All the things she feared, and kept hidden. And while silence hung heavy on her heart, it didn’t feel all that much better getting it out.

“After maybe two, three weeks he asked me where I wanted to go. I was a sophomore in high school back then, so I’d started looking into colleges that I never thought I’d be able to go to. But Grantaire told me to pick my favorite, and so we drove out here and got an apartment,” she said succinctly, trying to wrap up the sob story. “He went from out of control, back to hermit instantly, and got as many jobs as he could. Somehow, he even got me enrolled in the local high school. Three years later, I’m in college and he’s taken to hiding again. This time from me as well.”

Enjolras sighed and leaned back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. For all the composure he still managed to hold onto, Éponine had never seen him look so emotional.

“Thank you for trusting me with this,” he said slowly, clearly trying to figure out how to word whatever came next. “But what does this have to do with his disappearance now?”

Okay, Éponine deserved a fucking medal for not punching him in that instant. How could he still be so blind to the role he played in her best friend’s life? Grantaire was far from subtle when it came to his emotions, so it was easy to assume that anyone who spent enough time with him would be able to figure him out.

 _You’re the new Christopher,_ she wanted to shout at him. _You’re the one refusing to let him hide away from the human race. You’re the first thing he’s believed in in years._

“You and the Amis are the first friends he’s had in forever. The first people he’s needed to impress in three years,” she said instead.

“What about you?”

She laughed at that. “We moved beyond that point years ago. You invited him to that class and put him on the spot. Instead of disappointing you, he ran like he always does.”

“Why is my opinion of his performance in a class so important?”

Seriously, she deserved a frickin’ trophy. All of the other chuckleheads in the group had caught on to Grantaire’s obvious crush; there was even a pool as to when this would blow up. It had genuinely never occurred to her that Enjolras could be so painfully oblivious. So Éponine really couldn’t help it when she downright gaped at him.

“If you can’t figure that one out,” she said finally, standing up and gathering her coat and book. “I really can’t help you.”

Before the blond could say anything else, she walked out of the Musain and headed for her next class.


	6. You Don’t Know How Lost I Am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had been planning to hold out on you with this one until next Monday, but the sheer enormity of the response I got from you forced my hand. Thank you so much for all the comments and kudos and support in the last chapter. I was completely blown away. 
> 
> So here it is: the Grantaire chapter!
> 
> Bonus: See if you can spot the Winchester logic!

Grantaire wanted to throw up. There was nothing in his stomach; food hardly passed his lips anymore, only little bits to keep him going when he needed it. A crust from the Earl, maybe some chips. He fueled himself almost entirely on coffee from the Musain and whatever alcohol he could sneak while bartending. If he even tried to throw up, he’d probably just end up dry heaving, maybe some loose bile if he was lucky.

Oh, but he was good at this. Grantaire knew how to make the time fly past when he just couldn’t deal with the world around him. He took as many jobs as possible, filled up as many hours as possible at all of his workplaces. He took early shifts at the Musain and left before any of the Amis would arrive for morning coffee, pulled long hours at the Earl, and ignored his lunch breaks to hide in the kitchen. Sometimes afterwards, he would even go to the supermarket and look for food they hadn’t eaten in years, just so he could leave it in the fridge for Éponine. Then the dinner rush at the Chinese restaurant he worked for his first year here, and whatever bars would have him.

He never looked at a clock, refusing to acknowledge the passing of time. If his jobs and chores were simply chains of events, Grantaire could remove himself from all of them. He became a fleshy, walking production line, accomplishing tasks and taking in the money that they so desperately needed. He never stopped moving, stopped working. Whatever task was put in front of him won his attention.

And if he couldn’t remember what day, or even what month it was, that was just an added bonus. The Amis faded to the back of his mind as just a silly memory of a time when he let himself stop moving, and be happy. And Enjolras… well, he never gave himself time to dwell on that ache.

But in that instant, crouched in front of his laptop on the giant red couch, time had stopped and he had nothing to do, nowhere to go. His computer had trapped him with a single red symbol hovering over the Facebook button. Grantaire didn’t get notifications from Facebook; there could only be one explanation.

Christopher had messaged him back.

He could easily go out and buy a handle of vodka, and down it all in one go. Lie on the floor (because he couldn’t ruin Ep’s couch) and just let fate take him, but it was far too merciful for what he had done. Like a fucking selfish asshole, he’d messaged Christopher, begging for forgiveness three years too late. He didn’t deserve to read the words on the page. Whatever Christopher graced him with, even if it was harsher than Enjolras at his cruelest, was too good for him.

Grantaire couldn’t ever deserve what Christopher had to say.

Fuck, it was all Grantaire thought about anymore; that last day in his hometown, with Christopher, and Brandon Walters, and his parents. He’d spent two hours staring at his cursor over the tiny Facebook icon, trying to work up the courage to click on it and read whatever scathing insults Christopher had written for him. Every noise sounded like laughter and sobs. All the food in the Earl smelled like burning lasagna in the oven.

He kept dashing to the refrigerator to find any kind of alcohol to take him away. Each time Grantaire swore at himself for daring to insult Christopher like that and slammed the fridge door on his hand. The muted, aching pain was welcome; he relished in the sharp return to reality it gave him. His fingers were hot and swollen and had taken to bleeding in some places, and one of his fingernails had broken, but he was sober.

Christopher had been wrong about him. Christopher had been wrong about everything.

He still remembers planning to meet after school let out in the library that day. Grantaire had walked in first, and slowly made his way through the stacks to the back corner of the shelves. He had always been a ball of nerves when he waited in the stacks for Christopher. It was where the freckled blond boy had kissed him for the first time, and it was where Christopher had helped him begin to interpret all the different letters and start to make them form words. Most days they curled up in their abandoned little corner (because no one really checked out the books about different types of birds) studying and trading quick kisses until the librarian lovingly kicked them out.

That day, Christopher had run up to him with a thin paperback book and whispered to him "no homework today."

It wasn't unusual for one of them to say that. Sometimes Christopher found library books and curled up in his lap to read to him. Other days Grantaire would sketch him, while he did his homework, or read up on his history. Some days they just kissed lazily until they heard Mrs. Heller’s footsteps.

The day Grantaire admitted to loving Greek lore, Christopher had run to find Edith Hamilton’s Mythology (the _only_ worthy assemblage of western mythology, he’d sworn) and spent hours reading to him. Whenever they took breaks from work, Edith had been nearby. It had been checked out to the two of them so often that the kind old librarian Mrs. Heller, stopped shelving it in the Religion/Spirituality section, and just tucked it in the bottom shelf of their corner for them.

That day, the book that Christopher brought was not Edith Hamilton.

“Howl?” he’d asked incredulously. “Is this entire thing a poem?”

“Mrs. Heller gave it to me,” he’d said conspiratorially. “Apparently it was banned from the school a few years back, but she never got rid of it. It was part of this huge obscenity trial in the fifties.”

“Obscenity you say?” Grantaire had joked and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. And with that he’d curled up in Christopher’s lap, all but purring when the other boy played with his hair while he read.

For all of Christopher’s adorable boyish charm and sweet smile, Grantaire had been swept away by the boy’s voice more than any other physical attribute. He spoke softly and elegantly, but it was distinctly masculine. Every time Christopher read to him, it was like he was giving him a precious secret, but as he was swept up into the rhythm of Howl, Grantaire felt himself floating away helplessly on the wretchedly beautiful language of Allen Ginsberg.

Both of them had to stop when the first descriptions of homosexuality arose in the poem. Brutal language mixed with joyous images, and he’d wanted to cry in the middle of the library.

“I think Mrs. Heller knows about us,” Grantaire said thickly, leaping up and starting to pace between the shelves. It was all he could do not to panic and give away their location to everyone in the library.

Christopher had stood up quickly and entwined his hands in Grantaire’s to try and stop the nervous energy he let out every time he started to pace. Then Christopher had bent down and kissed each of his knuckles.

“I think she’s trying to tell us that she loves us and accepts us,” he said with his awkward, adorable smile.

“It caused a huge obscenity trial,” he argued, frantic. He tried to pull away, tried to find someplace safe to run to. But this was their corner; there was nowhere left to go, and if this wasn’t safe anymore then he was trapped. Suddenly the shelves were closing in on him, and he wondered what would happen if someone pushed one shelf over. Would it domino until every bookshelf collapsed, entombing them underneath? There wasn’t enough movement he could afford himself to make the space theirs again.

“And it won,” Christopher said with a small smile and a slight squeeze of the hands.

Grantaire froze.

“A bunch of literary experts testified for it,” Christopher continued sweetly, squeezing his hand. “It was ruled not obscene. _We’re_ not obscene.”

The knots of tension building up and coiling tightly in his stomach had completely unraveled at that, and Grantaire all but collapsed to the ground in relief. Of course, Christopher – so much stronger than he looked – was there to catch him and wrap him in a tight hug as he gasped and sobbed as quietly as he could. Never once did Christopher let go of his hands; he just continued to hold him and press light kisses to his face, and neck, and in his hair.

After his breathing returned to normal, Christopher had found the page where they’d last left off and kept reading, not stopping until the very end. Both of them were crying by that point, but it didn’t matter. They’d kissed fervently, tasting tears on each other’s lips, and smiling at each other the entire time.

When the library was finally starting to close, Christopher left first, giving Grantaire a good ten minutes to make himself presentable and stop his head from spinning in joy. He had wiped his eyes dry and packed up his backpack before heading out of the library, towards the parking lot.

Not even the laughter of Brandon Walters and his band of assholes could dampen his mood as he searched for where he’d parked the minivan. His head was lost in the clouds, and he didn’t think he’d ever come down. They were a few lanes over from him, and he could be careful; nothing to fear. But then their laughter turned into words, and when one of them barked out the word “ _faggot_ ” the blood in Grantaire’s veins turned to ice.

Grantaire had dropped his backpack instantly to avoid making noise and had taken off in the direction of the laughter as fast as he could. When Christopher’s helpless crying and pleading could be heard underneath the laughter (because he could recognize that voice anywhere) his vision started blurring. When the sounds of feet and fists connecting with flesh met his ears, Grantaire was sure that he could taste the blood.

And then, when he saw eight of them surrounding Christopher, beating him into the pavement like something vile to be squashed, he had to back away and clap a hand across his mouth to keep from crying out in horror.

He had pressed his back against the nearest car as cover and slid down to crouch near the ground, arms wrapped around his knees and fist in his mouth. He had skinned his hands and knees turning around and diving to the ground so quickly, but he could barely acknowledge the sting. There was nothing that Grantaire could do but listen as Christopher begged them to stop, cried out for anyone to help him.

There were eight of them. He had no chance.

From that one glance Grantaire knew that his arm was twisted the wrong way, probably broken. And from the way Christopher curled up around himself, he wouldn’t be surprised if a rib was damaged as well.

Christopher had been wrong, he thought miserably.

They were just as obscene today as they had been back in the 1950’s. They were something so much less than human that packs of kids would surround and beat them senseless in the middle of an empty parking lot in the high school. And if Grantaire thought he understood the true depth of human ugliness, he was proven wrong by what happened immediately after Christopher let out a loud broken wail.

Grantaire stood up and ran; back to his backpack, away from the sounds of pain and the sounds of laughter. With tears pouring down his cheeks, he climbed into his car and drove away.

His head was pounding, and those screams wouldn’t leave his ears. The world was spinning and the last grip he had on reality slipped away. He couldn’t even make it home; there was nothing but emptiness there anyway. All he could think was that he’d just left Christopher there. Wonderful, sweet, stubborn Christopher, who had moved mountains to teach him how to read.

People would climb over the bodies of their friends and loved ones just for safety, he thought nauseously. _That_ was the truth of humanity. All the words he’d made himself believe over the years, _it only hurts if you care,_ were wrong. Human nature was a vile, devouring thing, and it would continue to assault him, even as it swallowed him whole. He needed to hide, needed to run. Needed…

Grantaire found himself staggering to Éponine’s window, lost and frantic. She had tried speaking to him, tried getting him to explain what had happened. But he couldn’t even form words, and eventually she stopped trying and held just him. He had never cried so hard in his life.

Time held no meaning anymore; nothing held meaning anymore. Grantaire had been cut adrift, and in a sick way it was freeing.

Without explanation, he left Éponine’s and found his way home. It was already dark outside, so both of his parents were home, sitting at the dinner table. There was lasagna cooking in the oven, but that didn’t mean anything.

“Mom, Dad, I’m gay,” he’d said without any preamble.

Even years later, he couldn’t explain what had possessed him to do it. Maybe he had truly wanted to get a rise out of them, just to see if there was anything he could do or say to make them care anymore.

Even if that was what he wanted, he would have been disappointed. They just stared at him for several minutes, and he stared back at them. His ratty, faded Kermit the Frog t-shirt hung off his body, somehow both gaunt and baggy. Their faces looked exactly the same way. All of them could smell the lasagna burning in the oven, but no one paid any attention to it. Even when the room started to get smoky, it was ignored.

Hours later, he would still have the smell of burning lasagna clogging his senses. Days later he would start waking from nightmares of gravel against his skin, cries for help, and the scent of burning lasagna.

After several, several minutes something just shifted. His father sighed, and his parents glanced at each other. There was no panic or confusion, just a hint of sad acceptance.

No. Grantaire recognized exactly what this was. They looked the same exact way when his teachers shrugged and told them that he’d be lucky to become a truck driver. They were going to love him through this because it was what they were supposed to do. And if they had to watch all of their plans and dreams for their son swirl down the crapper, then they would keep silent and try not to blame him, because that’s not what good parents did.

This was disappointment. The only thing they’d genuinely felt towards him in years. No matter how hard he tried, no matter who he was or what he did, that’s all he’d ever be to them.

“It’s not that we don’t love you,” his Mother began, confirming exactly what he thought. “We do…”

“We just don’t quite know what to do with this,” his Father finished for her.

It wasn’t even the gay thing by this point. It was just him. Grantaire nodded bitterly and staggered backwards shakily. In an instant, he knew what he had to do. All of those promises that he and Éponine had made at night when she snuck out of her house to hide at his no longer felt like hopeless pipe dreams. There was nothing left here to fight for. He couldn’t bear to face Christopher after today. After everything the boy had shared with him, only for Grantaire to abandon him so heartlessly. And his parents… well, it would be like his gift. This would be his last disappointment.

He walked, not ran, to his room and packed up all his clothes and his blanket and pillow in an old duffel bag in the back of his closet. His laptop and power cord got thrown in his backpack, along with whatever toiletries he thought he might need. All the money he owned got filtered from the many desk and bedside table drawers and into his wallet before he tossed that in the backpack as well. Finally, he took his now-empty laundry basket, and carefully filled it with all of his art supplies, from the most inexpensive colored pencil, to the several large sketchbooks filled with his past drawings. When he was sure he had everything Grantaire cracked open his bedroom window, the same one that Éponine had climbed through so many times, and scampered out with his laundry basket. It was the first thing he brought to the trunk of his car, and he returned afterwards for the duffel and backpack.

Finally, before he could leave, he reentered his room for one last time. On his now-bare bed, a pile of textbooks and notebooks from the school lay in a heap from where he’d dumped his backpack out. With them, lay Howl. The school had banned it, so it wasn’t the library’s anymore, and Christopher had given it to him for safekeeping. Now, Grantaire so wished he hadn’t, because he didn’t deserve to hold onto it.

How could he bring it with him, the perfect symbol of everything Christopher had given him, after he had so utterly betrayed him?

How could he leave it and pretend that Christopher had meant nothing to him?

Grantaire reached into the room one last time and snatched Howl from the bed, before taking off in his car. Two minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of the Sargent Inn, the Thénardier’s motel. Even from out here, he could hear the cheering and drunken revelry coming from the main office, but none of it mattered. He took a moment to carefully stow Howl away with the rest of his sketchbooks and lock his car twice (with the Thénardiers, he could never be too careful with his belongings) and ran to Éponine’s window, hoping that her father didn’t need her for a business deal tonight.

She stared at him with open, concerned eyes when he got to her window, eyes that he simply couldn’t handle at the moment. If he let her begin to comfort him, Grantaire would lose all his nerve and break down into even more tears. So instead, he steeled his heart and took charge.

“We’re leaving. Pack your shit.”

He helped her get her few belongings together, and even found a duffel bag (the Thénardier’s had probably stolen it from some poor, unsuspecting patron) in one of the closets that held just about everything she owned. Then he stuffed it carefully into the trunk with the rest of his things, and focused on getting them the hell out of Dodge.

Because at the time he just couldn’t think about what he was leaving behind.

Oh fuck. Unable to stop himself, Grantaire clicked on the link. His hand hurt, but he could focus through the pain. The memory of Christopher’s pleading and the feeling of running away however, he didn’t know how to drown that out.

He was brought immediately to the message, and he stared at it for several long seconds with unseeing eyes. His vision was blurred by tears, but with his head spinning so much, it was possible that those were black spots or floaters. It was a short message, only a few words long. Christopher probably couldn’t be bothered to get angry, and Grantaire braced himself for the succinct _fuck off_ that was sure to follow.

What else could he say in reply to Grantaire apologizing for everything that had happened?

**Don’t be. I’m not.**

Although it wasn’t possible, Grantaire managed to burst into a whole new round of wretched sobs. The spinning fogginess in his head overwhelmed him, and his vision went completely black.

Somehow, that was the worst thing that Christopher could have said.


	7. You Don’t Know I’m Just as Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the week-long wait that I made you guys sit through. I'm just a tad evil. But thank you for the amazing response; I absolutely loved hearing from all of you! I hope to hear from you again. Enjoy!

Enjolras didn’t know what to do.

He was unfamiliar with the majority of basic human interpersonal relations, and couldn’t tell if he was doing it right. After all, the entire group was very physically affectionate; they hugged each other, gave each other piggy-back rides, snuggled on couches, shared food, and who knows what else? He had always felt removed from that;

But as Éponine told him about everything that had happened to them, and the lengths that she had to go through to just keep Grantaire feeling safe every day, his head swam.

 _“R’s just afraid,”_ Éponine had said. “ _Afraid of you._ ”

His stomach still ached dully from hearing those words, and while he almost understood them less with context, it didn’t matter to him. Enjolras had been nothing less than honest when he’d said that he just wanted his friend back. He hadn’t anticipated the words, and the moment they’d escaped his throat, he struggled to comprehend exactly how true they were.

“ _Your emotions make you weak, boy,_ ” his father had told him for the first time when he was beginning his first day of kindergarten. “ _Let anyone see your weaknesses, and they’ll be sure to use them against you._ ”

That was the cardinal lesson, and it was unnerving realizing how much he had taken it to heart. It had echoed through every interaction, every careful persona that Enjolras adapted towards others. But Enjolras couldn’t help it; his father had used their family for business deals, company events, and charity balls far too many times, and he saw the politics and power plays behind every interaction. One of Enjolras’ father’s businesses was a large pharmaceutical company, and when he was twelve years old, he’d watched his father – at dinner with another family – manipulate a CEO into an unbeneficial company merger by using the man’s sick son against him.

College was the first time he’d dared to make emotional ties, and even then, Enjolras was reluctant to get too close. After so long avoiding connections, and avoiding weakness, he still struggled with friendship, and close relationships. Grantaire, with his heart on his sleeve and his overly expressive big blue eyes was almost too much Enjolras’ opposite. And with everything Éponine had just told him, he was more certain than ever that he was out of his depth.

With a terrifying ache, Enjolras couldn’t help but wonder if he wanted that. He knew that he wanted to find Grantaire, and find some way to convince him that there was nothing to be afraid of. He could see himself clutching at Grantaire’s wrists and talking to him until he remembered where he was and that he was safe. Enjolras was used to those eyes fixed on him, wild in debate, but how Éponine described mooring him to reality, he could barely imagine it. And he couldn’t help but wonder if this went beyond the concept of friendship that he was still struggling through.

That would certainly complicate things.

With a sigh of understanding at loose threads weaving into place, he stood up from the student desk in his room determined of what to do.

It only took two guesses to find his roommate sitting in an enclosed desk near the far corner of the library. It was far enough away from all possible sources of noise and distraction that it was perfect for the philosophy major. Of course, Enjolras’ entire body was pulled tight with anxiety, and moved stiffly as a result. It was probably difficult for Combeferre not to be distracted by the sharp movements, though his roommate didn’t seem to try.

Enjolras pulled a chair up to the cubicle desk, and Combeferre turned to meet his eyes. After a few moments of staring at the serene philosopher, trying to find the right words, he simply sighed and began.

“May I speak with you?” he asked, even his words came out sharp and on edge.

“Of course,” Combeferre said with a friendly smile. “About what?”

“I have a suspicion that you already know. After all, you seem to have foreseen my predicament before it had entered my awareness,” he said uncomfortably.

It was more unsettling than he expected. After all, his roommate probably knew him better than any other person in the world. They operated the same way, and understanding came easily with Combeferre. Enjolras never needed to explain the tension he carried in his posture, or the distance in his affections, or the single-minded focus that he was often caught up in. By no means should it surprise him that Combeferre understood something about him without explanation.

That Combeferre had anticipated the trouble before he did though, that was excessively unnerving. That was what his father would call leverage, his mind whispered at him traitorously. And just like every other time the thought had entered his mind, Enjolras shoved it away disdainfully.

“Oh?” Combeferre asked with mild surprise, before his expression melted into a secretive smile. “Explain it to me anyway.”

They said this to each other often enough. The two intuitively knew each other more often than not, but for the other’s benefit issues were almost always explicitly spelled out. Both of them were linear thinkers. They could follow one thought to the next logical outcome with ease, but it had to take a path. Combeferre had found that talking forced their thoughts into causal chains, offering clarity.

“I spoke to Éponine, and she explained to me in part why Grantaire has disappeared. But I’m less sure of my conviction now than I was before,” Enjolras trailed off, jaw tightening. “It seems my judgment may be compromised.”

“Or perhaps you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be in regards to perspective,” Combeferre said with another odd smile before sitting up straighter. “Talk through your thoughts. Treat this as speech preparation.”

Enjolras would never have spoken a word, had the person opposite him not been Combeferre. His best friend wouldn’t fault him on where his thoughts lead, and if he needed to backtrack. They shared similar minds, (though Combeferre found a serenity amongst the group that he himself lacked) and Enjolras valued his roommate for that understanding more than he could verbalize. But this was very different. Even after two days, Enjolras was still sifting through everything Éponine had told him, and while he could use the help, there was more at risk than his own peace of mind.

“There are things that I cannot explain to you. I won’t break a confidence.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Combeferre said with a kind-hearted chuckle. “This is for you; you reason better out loud. I don’t need context for anything.”

Slowly, Enjolras worked through the suggestion before nodding slowly. That could work. He filed away all the confusion that had arisen from Éponine’s little history and focused inward, on his own presence of mind. 

“My mind is trying to rationalize away these obscure emotional responses,” he said slowly, knowing that he didn’t have to specify what sorts of responses, and being relieved for it. “Trying to suggest that I could not possibly hold interest in Grantaire, because it’s _Grantaire_.”

Even as he said it, he could hear the slight inflection in his voice that sounded too much like his father. The words tasted rancid on his tongue, and his spine stiffened even further. Had it been anyone but Combeferre, he could never admit something so despicable out loud.

“But?”

“I won’t do that. To rationalize him away as incompatible would be to lower him to something inappropriate or lesser,” Enjolras explained bitterly, unsure at this point if Combeferre wanted to hear him say it, or if he genuinely needed the clarification. “And I absolutely refuse to further desecrate Grantaire’s personhood in that way. It has been violated more in his short lifetime than anyone’s ever should be.”

He felt comfortable revealing that much at least. It disclosed nothing, and could be true of anyone. And it was too crucial for Enjolras to ignore. The picture Éponine had painted of Grantaire’s struggles was too clear in his mind. Too many times, people the cynic had trusted failed him and made him believe that it was his fault. Without even knowing it, Enjolras himself had been a perpetrator of the same offenses in the past; he had somehow struck the cynic at his core every time he’d attacked, and the precision unnerved him. As much as he ached to find Grantaire and show him that he had nothing to be afraid of, he didn’t know his own mind well enough to make that claim.

“You had said that if new circumstances arose, you would consider yourself objectively and calmly, and that’s what you’re doing. You’re nothing if not true to your word.” Combeferre said with an indulging shrug. “However, no one could begrudge you shock and confusion.”

Enjolras shook his head with careful neutrality as if to dismiss the suggestion. Of course, internally he couldn’t. Combeferre was, as he usually was, correct. He _didn’t_ know his own mind for the first time since he was nine years old. It was disorienting and unnerving, and there was only so much he could force himself to show Combeferre. He would seek the philosophy major for advice, but he couldn’t admit to such vulnerability. It was too much.

Combeferre nodded and leaned back in his chair with a slight smile, and Enjolras wondered just how much more his roommate knew that he hadn’t told him. The expression was just removed enough to pretend that he’d bought Enjolras’ nonchalance, and still thoughtful enough to find a way to salvage the conversation.

“Perhaps you are concerned about yourself in regards to _him_ , instead of him in regards to you,” he offered wisely.

“That is… entirely possible.” Enjolras’ words died quickly on his lips, leaving a sad resignation behind in its wake. Resignation over who he was and who he would never let himself be. “Before I even knew him I had wounded him several times. His past has rendered him delicate, and I am…”

“Snuggle buddy of the year?” Combeferre asked with a smirk.

“Harsh.” He supplied bitterly. Enjolras still remembered the looks on his friend’s faces after he had run Grantaire out of the Corinth. The mixture of shock, sympathy, and disapproval had surprised him at the time. His friends had needed to explain to him exactly how cruel he’d been. Even Combeferre’s usually calming voice had been sharp as he’d asked “ _What was that, Enj?_ ”

He’d told them that he’d needed time to think, and he had. The incident had been the inspiration for his t-shirt, and still gave him pause. How much his character resembled that of his father, and what damage he could inflict without realizing it?

“Reserved,” Combeferre corrected emphatically with a shake of his head, a concerned expression on his face.

“Regardless of your choice in semantics the sentiment remains, and it’s all wrong for him,” Enjolras said with a shrug, almost wishing for it not to be true. His nature was not something he could change, nor did he largely want to. All he knew was that he refused to hurt Grantaire any more than he already had. Before Combeferre could argue the point further, Enjolras continued, changing the topic. “Besides, I don’t even recognize what I feel. Misinterpretation is a dangerous possibility.”

That even Combeferre had to agree with. Friendship was still unfamiliar to Enjolras, and the possibility of anything more was still foreign. There was too much at stake for him to enter into a commitment of statement without the utmost certainty.

“Then what would you do instead?”

Enjolras sighed and looked at his clasped hands. He didn’t have an answer.

\-----

Combeferre sighed as he watched his best friend and roommate disappear into the stacks, no more certain in his mind than he’d been before the conversation.

Enjolras had said that he was all wrong for Grantaire, that his social awkwardness would interfere and hurt the cynic. And even though the blond didn’t realize it, Combeferre had just witnessed his roommate stating that Grantaire deserved more.

“Or perhaps,” Combeferre whispered, knowing full well that Enjolras couldn’t hear him, and wouldn’t have believed him if he could. “Perhaps you need him as well.”


	8. You Don’t Know What I’ve Run From

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Thank you all for how much support I've gotten from all of you through this. I can't believe you've stuck with me through 66k words. You are incredible. 
> 
> And now that we're here, after all that I put these characters through, believe me when I say... shit's about to get real.
> 
> Please don't hate me.

Things were finally starting to get better, or if not better then at least less bleak. A few days ago, Éponine had gone home and found Grantaire passed out on the floor in front of the couch. She’d been terrified but he’d woken up slightly dizzy, breath not smelling like alcohol. Then she’d seen his hand. It had looked like he’d slammed it into something repeatedly, and her idiot roommate _would_ do something like that. Grantaire wouldn’t pick a conventional means of self-harm, but would instead just find the most convenient thing within arm’s reach.

She genuinely didn’t want to know.

Instead, she’d bandaged his hands, sat him down, and made dinner for them both. With all the organic food in the house these days, she’d decided to go all out and make a vegetable stir fry. After three tentative bites, Grantaire had all but inhaled the food, so she had taken out the block chocolate (he had bought her freaking semi-sweet baking chocolate in a block) and melted it in the microwave. They then dunked in slices of apples and oranges for their desert.

So it had been malnourishment instead of alcohol poisoning. That bastard.

They hadn’t exchanged a single word that night, but something had shifted. Grantaire continued his insane schedules, but he wasn’t so blatantly hiding from her anymore. For a few minutes out of the day, after Éponine’s classes let out and before she had to go to the Writing Center for work they would both be in the apartment together. He was finished with The Earl for the day, and the bars had yet to open. He still wasn’t speaking much, but would shoot her the occasional grin as he offered her dinner, and the sheets stopped smelling like alcohol and sweat.

It was small, but Grantaire’s skin was starting to look colorful and fleshy again, as opposed to the startling gray pallor that she’d seen on him (when she had seen him) in the past several weeks.

Enjolras had yet to do anything, but she chocked that up to the blond’s different brand of thinking himself in circles. If more than a week passed by, she would deem it time to worry about another last hope.

For now, she forced herself to stay in the moment, and not dwell on her best friend’s panic. What brief reprieves she could get from the stress that seemed to suffocate the apartment, she took gratefully. Whether that meant breakfast with Cosette and her absolutely wonderful father, studying in the library with Marius, or watching Game of Thrones with Combeferre and Feuilly, she grabbed for breaks from fearing for her best friend.

At the moment, she was walking through the quad after class, Bahorel on one side of her, and Joly on the other. Since they all had Wednesday last classes in the same building this semester, it had become a tradition for the three of them to hang out on the green for however-long and just hang out.

Occasionally they’d see Jehan in the quad and he’d join in as well, but ever since it started snowing, that had been happening less and less, as the poet preferred to stay inside when it got cold. Apparently, the cold exacerbated his head injury, and caused him more headaches and dizzy spells than usual.

Courfeyrac, native of New Hampshire sometimes came barreling outside, a trail of snow angels, broken icicles, and snow forts stocked with ammunition in his wake. She swore, that man turned from pre-law to seven year old whenever he stepped into the snow. Not that their group’s center was _ever_ far removed from childhood.

Bossuet was another familiar face, often appearing to fuse himself to his boyfriend’s side and crack a few jokes. It was incredible how often he would lose his gloves or hat. But Joly always made an extra appear from one of the many pockets in his gigantic winter coat.

But Cosette had still won the award for most bizarre entrance. Two weeks ago she’d suddenly appeared in Joly’s face as they were passing through the quad, hanging upside down from a low hanging tree branch in her white down coat, lime green leggings, and a black miniskirt. After many minutes of fretting over her catching a cold, Joly had eventually helped her down, and she had spent the next two hours with them, chatting about how excited she was that snoods were coming back into style.

Today they’d heard about some student spray painting the dumpsters by the Freshmen housing, so they were wandering in that direction to check out the artistic genius in question, lazily swapping stories on the way.

“Holy shit, I remember hearing about that as a froshie,” Bahorel said in what could only be described as his everywhere-voice, because Bahorel couldn’t differentiate between indoor and outdoor voices. “That was you?”

“Well, I wasn’t a part of it; I was a sophomore at the time, and possibly had cholera. Before Enjolras arrived to shine the light of rebellion, Musichetta was the daredevil of the college.”

“So she decided to protest raising the tuition rates by yarn bombing the college Board of Regents meeting room?”

They turned down the pathway and the horseshoe-shaped Freshman buildings came into view.

“Well, Bossuet was the knitter, but Musichetta was the mastermind. And not just the meeting room, the entire registrar. Every chair, table, desk, lamp, computer, filing cabinet, printer, and doorknob were given their own little knit sweaters. It slowed down production for a week,” Joly said, beaming with pride at his girlfriend and boyfriend’s crazy accomplishments. “I’ve still got pictures on my phone.”

Éponine didn’t have to see any pictures to believe it. She remembered Bossuet starting about three knitting projects during hibernation to relieve finals stress. He’d finished a wonderful pair of slippers, and made a gorgeous scarf. Even so, Joly pulled out his iPhone with the stupidly adorable penguin case, and began searching through his many picture folders for the photos of the registrar.

“Hey, what’s that folder?” Bahorel asked, peering over Joly’s shoulder.

“Which?”

“The one called _Caramel and Dark Chocolate_ ,” he replied, as if there was any folder besides that one with an obscure name. Joly was infamous for keeping all of his things, including his pictures carefully organized and labeled.

Joly barely had time to blush before Éponine’s eyes widened in realization.

“Bahorel, get the phone,” she yelled gleefully, as the pre-med tried to dart away, hazel eyes wide in fear.

The stocky ginger didn’t entirely get it at first, but the moment he looked at Joly’s mortified expression, the pieces clicked, and he bolted after him as well. Joly must have run track or something because he was quick, but Éponine was cunning and Bahorel was just huge. They caught up quickly and tackled him into a snow drift. Underneath them, Joly had curled himself around his phone, shielding it.

“Let me go before I catch pneumonia,” he wailed, face muffled with snow.

“Show us the pictures,” Éponine demanded, laughing.

“Over my dead body!”

Bahorel and Éponine shared a look, grinning wickedly at each other as they both reached the same conclusion. She backed away quickly.

“If you say so,” Bahorel said with a shrug, then lifted the balled up senior straight up to his chest, before tossing him towards another snow drift.

Joly scrambled to stand up, but Éponine was too quick, climbing on top of him and pinning his arms and legs with her own. She was shaking with laughter as Joly tried to squirm out of her grip, to no avail. Feeling lighter in this moment than she had in a few months, she let out a whoop of triumph.

Somewhere along the way, the Amis had become her boys as well, and if she was one to dwell, it might’ve worried her how fast she’d grown accustomed to this ragtag family group. But Éponine wasn’t one to dwell.

Over her shoulder, Bahorel was laughing at the sight of Joly clearly trapped underneath her. Had they been in high school, it wouldn’t have taken long for the pre-med to get teased for being beaten by a girl, but everyone knew by now that Éponine was tougher than the ordinary girl.

“If Bossuet’s dark chocolate and Musichetta’s caramel, do you get a cutesy nickname too?” Bahorel asked with a wicked grin.

“Vanilla bean?” Éponine suggested.

“Twinkie?”

“Little cannoli?”

“Cannoli?” Bahorel questioned her skeptically.

“Think about it.”

The bright red that had long since taken over Joly’s face turned even brighter at Bahorel’s sudden bark of laughter when he got it.

“Oh! Cream puff! Please tell me you’re their cream puff!”

“I’ll never tell!” the pre-med shouted defiantly.

“I’ll sneeze on you,” Éponine threatened darkly.

“You. Wouldn’t. Dare.”

Éponine threw her head back to cackle maniacally, but before she could, her eyes caught sight of a figure slipping out of the freshmen dorms and heading towards them. The instant she saw his face, her body froze up.

The man was in his late thirties, if not early forties, and he dressed in light colors. It was different from anything she’d ever seen him wear before, but perhaps he was trying to blend into the snow.

It took Joly throwing her off of him and landing in the snow for her sluggish body to wake up from the stupor she’d been caught in. The thin pre-med glared at her, but she took no notice. Éponine felt at her waistband, only to realize that she’d left her knives at home that day. She was defenseless.

“Ep?” Joly asked, probably noticing that she’d gone a few shades paler and instantly concerned.

Fuck, he was really here. How could he be here? Her blood raced and her head felt light. Completely blindsided with no clue what to do, Éponine could feel herself reverting back to her base instincts that she’d learned long ago, despite the fact that most of those instincts were wrong. All she could comprehend was that _he_ was here and she was helpless. Still on the ground, she scampered backwards frantically until she was hidden behind Bahorel's legs.

Water had seeped through her old canvas jacket, and was sinking into her hoodie, but she couldn’t feel the cold. Her skin was throbbing as if it was overheating, her temples pounded and everything was falling away around her.

“’Ponine, what’s wrong?” Bahorel demanded instantly, crouching in front of her in the snow. His face was morphed into a snarl, and Joly stood next to him, looking equally as worried.

“Get me out of here,” she said, hating that her voice came out broken, and closer to a whimper than actual words. “Don’t let him see me.”

Bahorel looked around furiously to narrow in on who she was talking about, while Joly carefully helped her stand and brushed the snow out of her hair. Then, without a word Joly removed the long stocking cap from his head and covered her with it, pulling it down until it sat just above her eyes. Next to them, Bahorel must have spotted him, because the linebacker’s entire posture tensed and curled forward slightly, as if preparing for a fight.

Before Éponine even got the chance, Joly tugged on the ginger’s sleeve and shook his head saying that they needed him there as a shield, and that Joly couldn’t hide her if he tried. Instead, the pre-med unzipped his oversized winter coat and pulled her into it, letting her bury her face in the crook of his neck. Amazingly, they could both fit.

They walked as quickly and carefully as possible, immediately veering off the pathways and walking through the snow banks to the nearest building needing a card swipe. Bahorel walked to the side, using his sheer muscle mass to hide them from sight. Éponine was trembling inside the coat, and Joly stroked her arm to try to comfort her.

By the time they reached the closest building, Éponine was next to tears. Bahorel swiped his card and yanked the door open, ushered her and Joly inside before following himself. It just happened to be the school’s tiny convenience store, so they immediately moved to the back of one of the aisles, away from the door.

Through blurred vision, she stared in the direction of the front of the store, waiting to hear the bell indicating another customer entering. After a minute and a half, when no noise came, she finally relaxed, going boneless and sitting on the floor in the middle of the Ramen noodles aisle.

Hesitantly, Joly cocked his head to the side, silently asking her a question. It took a minute longer than usual for her to piece it together, but when it clicked Éponine let out a breathless huff of laughter, and gave him back his hat.

“Who the fuck was that ‘Ponine?” Bahorel growled, looking half ready to charge out the door and beat him into a thin pulp. “Some kind of ex? Do I need to kick his ass?”

“No, nothing like that,” she stammered out, still choking back tears. “Just please, get me home.”

Upset but not blind, she saw Joly and Bahorel exchange a look before moving.

“I’ll call ‘Chetta. She can pick us up,” Joly said nervously.

“I’ll convince the cashier to let us use the back exit,” Bahorel said in response, his voice darkly even. The snarl hadn’t once left his face, and Éponine knew exactly how he planned to do it.

Both moved away towards their appointed tasks. Joly walked a handful of feet to the left and Bahorel, moved to the front of the store. His short ginger hair was visible over the aisles the entire time. Moments later, she watched with a small smile as the cashier edged further and further away from the register, behind the countertop, head bobbing in quick acquiescence.

Within than a minute, both boys were back, nodding that they had done what they’d promised. Only able to wait for Musichetta and her tiny green Bug, they all sat down in the aisle and looked at each other.

Only ten minutes ago, she had been laughing, and trying to see the dirty pictures on Joly’s phone. Though things were far from okay in her life, Grantaire was unreachable, Enjolras was untouchable, classes were difficult, and money was always thin, at least they were things somewhat within her control. Suddenly though, everything was spinning away from her.

The familiar text tone let all of them know that Musichetta had arrived. And with one last look at the cashier, they pushed open the back door, usually reserved for restocking the store, and slipped out.

They saw the Brooklyn Latina immediately, and Joly made his way over first, checking to see that the coast was clear before waving Éponine and Bahorel over. Wordlessly, Joly climbed in the shotgun and she scampered into the back, using Bahorel’s back as a cover. Once the stocky ginger had climbed in and slammed the door though, Éponine immediately slid from the seat, and curled up on the floor of the car. Her arms wrapped around her legs and she rested her chin against her knees.

Joly turned and saw this and wrinkled his nose, clearly wanting to say something about safety hazards and how her posture could be bad for her neck muscles or something. But he must have thought better of it, because instead he just turned to his girlfriend and said, “Drive.”

Éponine sat there like that for a few minutes, refusing to let the rocking of the car lull her into any level of security. Joly and Musichetta in the front seat were looking straight ahead, though the pre-med turned to glance at her every now and again. Bahorel, still curled up for a fight, was resolutely staring out the side window and keeping guard for the man they’d seen in the quad.

He’s aged well, she thought. Granted, she hadn’t seen him since she was fourteen, and she hadn’t had the opportunity to get a good look at him today, but it looked like the ends of his thirties, or the beginnings of his forties were treating him well. His features aged only to look more drawn out and pointed. What he was doing in the freshman housing though, she had no clue. It could have nothing to do with her and it could be directly because of her, but she was screwed either way. All it would take was for him to see her once and recognize her.

“May I borrow your phone, ’Chetta?” Éponine asked nervously.

“Sure,” the other woman said worriedly. “Is something wrong with yours?”

Her eyes widened as she remembered her own phone. Éponine still took Musichetta’s because it was probably one of the only calls Grantaire would take these days. But as she did it, she pulled out her own phone and powered it down instantly, before pulling out the battery. In case he knew she was here, and was trying to find her in the freshman dorms, it was probably best to go radio silent. After carefully pocketing her phone and battery, she picked up Musichetta’s, and found Grantaire in her contacts.

He didn’t pick up the first time, probably because he was already at his bartending job for the night, but that was okay. Grantaire had long since set up a workable system with Éponine. Two calls one right after another meant an emergency, and he would always pick up the second one. She hit redial, and on the fourth ring he answered.

“Hey Brooklyn, everything okay down at the Café?” he asked lightly, but with distraction in his voice.

“R, it’s me,” Éponine said urgently, not giving him time to panic over speaking to her. Her voice was still wet from crying and she hated that she couldn’t control the crack in her voice.

“What happened?” he asked immediately, voice immediately focused and grim.

Éponine winced at the tone, and tilted her head back to lean against the car door. Of course Grantaire wouldn’t focus on that. No matter how weird things had been between them lately, Grantaire had known her almost her entire life. When she ran away from home for the night, it was always his house she ran to. He knew the warning signs in her voice by now, and whatever panic had overwhelmed him these past few months, he instantly put it aside to focus on the issue at hand. Éponine’s eyes burned again, but she forced herself not to crumple.

“I saw Claquesous on campus.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, tense and heavy with fear, before Grantaire finally said, “Did he see you?”

Bahorel turned to look at her and shook his head resolutely.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“I’m heading home now. If you get there before me, bring the spare key inside, and lock the doors and windows.”

With that, Grantaire hung up.

Éponine stared at Musichetta’s cell phone for a few moments, unable to comprehend what was happening. Slowly, she handed the phone back to Musichetta, and tightened her hold on her legs. Vaguely, she could see Bahorel’s figure tensing as he resumed his watch at the window, and Joly sending out a group text on his own phone. She couldn’t tell if he was informing them that they weren’t going to make the meeting tonight, or insisting that they all get to her and Grantaire’s apartment immediately. Knowing the Amis, it was probably the latter. And as much as she hated it, she might need their help now. Even if that meant telling them everything. Her throat caught painfully as a sob escaped.

It was all falling apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come soon.


End file.
